Iraqi youths find focus in the ring

BAGHDAD — Dripping with sweat, Bakr Sallih lunges toward his opponent and delivers a cracking punch to the jaw.

"Easy," chides his coach. "I want wisdom. I don't want force."

Less than a year ago, the lean 17-year-old was running the streets of Adhamiya with a Kalashnikov, defending the Sunni Arab enclave from attacks from the surrounding Shiite Muslim districts in east Baghdad.

But that was then, he says. Now, his fights are confined to the boxing ring at the Adhamiya Sports Club.

"I want to dedicate my power to work and sport," Sallih said between bouts, sucking blood from a split lip.

His coach, Iraqi boxing legend Farouk Chanchoun, smiled approvingly.

Once a place where Olympic dreams were made, the club was nearly destroyed in the sectarian bloodshed that swept Baghdad two years ago. As the violence ebbs, Chanchoun and other neighborhood athletes hope one of the city's oldest and most respected athletics institutions can help lure its sports-mad youth off the streets and provide a more constructive outlet for their energies.

"The first thing I want is reconciliation," Chanchoun said. "I don't want the law of the jungle to prevail."

But the reality of lingering fear and corrupt bureaucracies has a habit of intruding on dreams. Few people from outside Adhamiya dare visit the club in what was an insurgent bastion. And the Sunni trainers complain they have been abandoned by the country's Shiite-led government, which owns the club.

It is an often-heard frustration in Sunni parts of Baghdad, where residents who once fought U.S. and Iraqi forces are now cooperating with them against religious extremists. The U.S. military, which paid to refurbish the club, believes it is places like these that can help restore a sense of belonging among Sunnis -- and help determine whether the fragile truce holds.

The club is located on a main square in what was a well-to-do neighborhood of retired military officers, educators and other professionals. In its heyday, its athletes came from across Baghdad to compete in soccer, basketball, volleyball and swimming. But it is best known for producing champion boxers and wrestlers.

This is where Chanchoun, who made it to the light-welterweight quarterfinals at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, learned to trade punches when he was 7. His biggest fan, he said, was his mother, a diminutive woman in enveloping black robes who never missed a fight.