BAGHDAD: Sami al-Muthafar, a chemistry professor at Baghdad University, survived a car bomb attack in early February, walking away unscathed although several of his guards were wounded.

He knows many other scientists and academics who were not so fortunate.

“It is a big loss when we lose a professor or a scientist because they are the elite of society,” said Muthafar, who was minister of higher education under former president Saddam Hussein. “It is too hard to replace those we lose.”

Some 182 Iraqi university professors and academics have been killed in violence since the US-led invasion in 2003. Another 85 senior academics have been kidnapped or suffered attempts on their lives, the Association of University Lecturers in Iraq told a news conference last week.

Few Iraqi men and women of learning are concerned about academic freedom, an issue that galvanizes campuses in the western world. In Baghdad, the goal is to survive.

Those who do survive a bombing, gun battle or are released after a kidnapping rarely chance a second attempt, causing a brain drain of leading intellectuals who are vital for educating the Iraqi professionals of tomorrow and rebuilding the country.

“Targeting professors destroys the higher education system in Iraq, which in turn destroys other sectors of society by a deterioration in the level of teaching,” said Dr Mohammad Fahad, a professor in the dentistry faculty at Baghdad University.

Many Iraqis fear the targeting of academics will lead to a shortage of doctors, engineers and other professionals as well.

Fahad, who says he feels depressed, is considering leaving.

A report from the Association of University Lecturers in Iraq also noted at least one incident where a lecturer was attacked by his students and warned off campus.

Another professor at Baghdad University, who declined to be named, said he avoided disputes with students. Failing a student takes more than exceptional courage in Baghdad.

Students, too, understand that the education system is collapsing and worry about their own futures.

“Killing our professors has badly affected us,” said Ryadh Jomaa, a college student. “When an expert professor is killed it is hard to replace him and we suffer from this.”

“I think terrorists target them to deprive us of their knowledge,” said Qasim Abid, a third year computing student at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.

Amid Iraq’s lawlessness, it has not been easy to establish a political or criminal motivation for each death.

Dr Isam Kadhem al-Rawi, head of the Association of University Lecturers and a professor in earth sciences at Baghdad University, said the campaign against Iraq’s leading intellectuals was being orchestrated by parties inside and outside the country.

He said the motivation was the perceived allegiance of an individual to one particular religious or secular party — the idea being that killing those who supposedly push a particular agenda stops the spread of those ideas.

“What is going on in Iraq against these professors is a war crime,” Rawi said.

Rawi said if the situation did not improve, university lecturers would strike or organise other protests like sit-ins.

Such actions may bear fruit at institutions like Britain’s Cambridge university or Harvard in the United States, but few believe they will stop the killing of Iraq’s intellectuals.

Dr Abdul Latif al-Mayah, head of the Arab Homeland Study and Research Centre at Mustansiriya University, was killed in January 2004, a day after an appearance on Arabic television news channel Al Jazeera, his family said.

He was shot 32 times on his way to work.

“The killers were organised and professionals,” said his daughter Hiba, sitting next to a picture of her father. “A police officer told us it seemed like an intelligence operation.”—Reuters