Two stories in today’s British newspapers illustrate growing totalitarianism in Iraq.  The Sunday Times of London reports that Iraqi women are being intimidated and terrorised by hardline Islamist militias.  New rules of life have been imposed in areas of Baghdad under the control of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

“Women cannot drive; women cannot go out after midday; women and men are not allowed to go out and walk together, they must walk separately.” The rules are enforced by Al-Qaeda thugs who drive around in cars in Amariya, Yarmouk and other Sunni areas that Zarqawi has declared are his.

Neither are women allowed in public without a headscarf.  Anyone found in violation of the rules is liable to be shot.

Edicts issued by militants have no official standing or legal authority, but police are afraid to investigate murders committed by militia members.  American soldiers are apparently too busy avoiding roadside bombs to get involved.

The Telegraph reports that Baghdad Islamists are imposing other new decrees as well.  Street vendors of falafel were told to close up their businesses or be killed.  Some who thought the threat too absurd to take seriously have now been shot dead at their falafel stands.

"They came telling us, 'You have 14 days to end this job' and I asked them what was the problem," said Abu Zeinab, 32, who was packing up his stall for good yesterday in the suburb of al Dora, a hardline Sunni neighbourhood.

"I said I was just feeding the people, but they said there were no falafels in Mohammed the prophet's time, so we shouldn't have them either.

"I felt like telling them there were no Kalashnikovs in Mohammed's time either, but I wanted to keep my life."

There were no pizzas or burgers in Mohammed's time either, but vendors of those foodstuffs have not been threatened.

It gets weirder: Ice merchants have also been told to close their businesses because their product was not sold in Mohammed’s day.  (Actually, ice has been available for millennia—but not in the Middle East.)

Militants have also forbidden women to drive or ride buses in the company of men.  One wonders why the terrorists haven’t simply ordered all motor vehicles off the roads, since the internal combustion engine was invented rather more recently than the 7th century.