For you guys still in the box, here is your heads up. Zain is in a labor dispute with the Iraqi security company, tasked with protecting all the cell phone towers out there. This company is threatening to pull off all of it’s 7,000 men, off the 1,300 cell towers they are protecting. Not good. Zain owns Iraqna and Atheer by the way. Zain has until May 13 of this year, to make up their mind.
The other thing that is interesting about this, is that maybe Zain has a side deal with a different security company? I guess we will find out more in the future, and this is something to watch. -Head Jundi
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Iraq Braces for Busy Signal
Thursday , April 24, 2008
By Col. Oliver North
Washington, D.C. —
“The number you have called cannot be connected.”
Ever heard a recording like this on your telephone? On Sept. 11, 2001 messages like that were commonplace in New York and Washington and incredibly frustrating for first responders trying to coordinate rescue operations and families attempting to contact loved ones. Now think about that kind of message being heard by virtually every cell phone subscriber in an entire country. That may be about to happen in Iraq. If it does, it could well derail progress made in recent months and have long-term adverse consequences for U.S. interests in the region.
In December 2003, less than eight months after the liberation of Baghdad, two new Iraqi telecommunications companies, Atheer and Iraqna, boldly began erecting cell-towers and selling commercial cell phones and service in central and southern Iraq. In short order, everyone who could get his or her hands on a cell phone was buying one. Most had never even seen or used a “hard-wire” telephone. For Iraqis, cell phones quickly became vital to commerce and security. It was, in the words of an Iraqi soldier I interviewed, a “cellular-revolution.”
But of course Iraq is not exactly a “tranquil environment.” As Atheer and Iraqna built more than 1,300 cell towers and installed generators and satellite transceivers, the facilities became targets for Al Qaeda and other radical Islamic terror groups. To protect their expensive installations, the communications companies hired an independent security contractor with armed guards — more than 7,000 of them. As is commonplace in Iraq, the security contractor negotiated with local Sheiks, tribal, political and religious leaders to enhance protection for the towers and equipment — and it worked. The cellular companies flourished and in January this year the companies merged and were acquired by Zain, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mobile Telecommunications Company KSC, a Kuwaiti shareholding company traded on the Kuwait Stock Exchange. (more…)