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'Why I attacked US troops'
By Ferry Biedermann
BAGHDAD
- The shy young man in the cafeteria of a Baghdad hotel
hardly seems the type to carry out attacks on US
soldiers. But Walid (not his real name), a student of
English literature at Baghdad University, has a story to
tell that is compelling and detailed. A fellow student
confirms that the account tallies with what his friend
told him at the time.
Walid says that he belongs
to a "resistance group" in the area around his
birthplace Fallujah, where many of the attacks on US
soldiers in Iraq have taken place.
Some two
months ago he and five other fighters set out through a
field towards a road along which they were informed a US
army convoy would be traveling. Walid carried an RPG-7
rocket launcher and two grenades. He wore a blue track
suit. "No, not because of camouflage, it is my favorite
color," he told Inter Press Service.
Once they
arrived at the road, Walid and his five comrades spread
out and waited for the convoy to arrive. "We must resist
anyone who insults our Arab tradition," Walid says by
way of justifying the attack. On the day of the attack,
"a friend" came by to call him at about 9pm. Most of the
others were informed via satellite telephone. Walid knew
only two of his fellow fighters. They carried three RPGs
and two mortars.
"I was anxious and worried
about the outcome," Walid says. He recalls lying in wait
for about 90 minutes. "I was not afraid to die," he
says. His main worry was that he would fail to hit his
target, the last vehicle in the convoy. When the five
American Humvees and three or four Bradley fighting
vehicles reached the spot of the ambush, Walid's fears
proved well grounded. "I missed and we had to call off
the whole operation," he says.
His RPG exploded
against some rocks and the US troops opened fire. The
group scrambled to get away and Walid saw two of his
comrades getting hit; he thinks they were wounded. He
has not seen them again but he says he is sure everybody
got away.
After the botched attack Walid was not
called up again. He thinks that the group is observing a
ceasefire. "Many of the operations went bad, they caused
problems for the people," he says. Walid had been called
up for training with a group of other newcomers just
four or five days before the June attack. He had never
handled an RPG before but that day he fired two grenades
"in an open area".
The group has plenty of
weaponry and ammunition, says Walid. Besides the RPGs he
talks about mortars and even anti-aircraft missiles,
some of them bought from ex-army officers. "We had a
variety of weapons that were well-hidden after the war."
Walid does not conform to the picture that has
emerged over recent months of the typical new Iraqi
guerrilla fighter. He dislikes the old regime, he is not
a Muslim fundamentalist and he is not even unwaveringly
anti-American. A fervent handball player, he has an
athletic figure and huge calluses on his hands.
The handball player positively welcomed the
demise of the old regime. Its minions had frustrated his
dream of playing the game at the highest level when they
demanded a bribe of 3 million Iraqi dinars, at the time
US$1,500, to try out for the national team.
"Most people didn't respect the old regime, and
don't want it back," says Walid. That is why he thinks
that the leaders of his resistance group are not
Ba'athists or supporters of Saddam Hussein. But he is
not entirely sure - he has never met them. His friends
in the resistance have told him they are "good people".
He offers up some generalities about why he
personally dislikes the US presence. "They constantly
pass by in their uniforms and with their weapons and
they treat everybody badly, men and women," he says.
Like many other Iraqis, Walid says that he is
particularly upset at the way some soldiers treat women
during raids and searches. "They touch women and grab
them," he says.
What finally seems to have
turned Walid against the US was a stint as a translator
at a US military base near Fallujah. As an undergraduate
student of English literature, his language skills are
supposed to be reasonable, but in fact they are weak. He
insisted on speaking Arabic throughout this interview.
When he recalls his time with the US soldiers he
grimaces, and bitterness fills his voice. "They said we
are non-believers, savages, that we have no right to
live," Walid says. He recalls that a sergeant said the
Iraqis are "unbelievable people" and that "they can go
to hell". He lists every insult. After three days, Walid
stopped going to the camp. He says the soldiers wanted
him to come on patrol with them in their Humvees. "That
would have put me in a dangerous position."
After quitting his job at the base he provided
the resistance group with the identity of several Iraqi
informers, "traitors", whom he had seen talking to the
US troops. But he says also that the political situation
has improved because of the appointment of the Iraqi
Governing Council, a first step to re-establishing a
full-fledged Iraqi government. In the meantime, says
Walid, the group is using its time to build up its
strength.
(Inter Press Service)
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