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Anti-American sentiments turn citizens into fighters

Children clamber over   the skeletons of three  destroyed US army vehicles  as though they were playground apparatus.

The vehicles,  in the Al-Alawadiyah neighbourhood of  Baghdad, were destroyed  when US soldiers accidentally ignited the contents of a chemical warehouse.

But the children  still shouted epithets directed at US President George W. Bush and triumphantly held up shredded bits of uniforms that had belonged to marines.

'When the soldiers arrived at the warehouse, some Iraqis came to throw stones,' said Thair Abdul Hameed, who works at the Ash-Sharq Al-Assat newspaper, whose Baghdad office is next  to the warehouse.

'It is a sign of their hatred for the Americans and for what has happened in Fallujah.'

US officials in Baghdad portray the guerillas that attack them as foreign fighters, criminals and loyalists of deposed president Saddam Hussein. They say the men are paid to attack troops and 'soft targets' such as Iraqi and foreign civilians.

Though these accusations are probably true for some of the resistance forces, the reality is much more complex.

'Secular fighters, Ba'athists, foreigners and tribes have formed their own resistance groups,' said Ahmed, a 26-year-old   who claims to be part of an Islamic resistance group  called Jaish Al-Salafia.

'After we throw the Americans out of Iraq, we are going to Jerusalem,' he said.

Ahmed was a soldier in  Hussein's republican guard, but did not fight when US troops entered Baghdad last April.

But after seeing 'how the Americans humiliated Iraqis', he and a group of about 20 other men began attacking American troops in June.

He claims the group has carried out more than 250 attacks, the most recent on Saturday. He says  some of its fighters were as young as 12.

'We will not stop fighting until the last soldier leaves Iraq,' he said.

Ahmed, a Sunni,  said his group and others would retaliate if US troops attacked the Shi'ite cities.

'We are all Muslims,' he said. 'We are united now.'

In the  Shi'ite neighbourhood of Al-Thawra, often called Sadr City,  Mahmoud Zaidi, an imam loyal to militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr echoed that sentiment. 'What's the difference? Karbala, Sadr City, Najaf, Adamiyah, it's all Iraq.'

Though Mr Zaidi defended the use of suicide bombings, which Mr Sadr has said he would call for if the Americans attack in Najaf, forces loyal to  the cleric do not share Ahmed's zeal.

'It's all fighting, whether [or not] you kill yourself,' he said. 'But the Mahdi army  [the Sadr militia] is just for keeping security.'

Hamed Salman Alwan Matar, a farmer in Al-Dora, a suburb of Baghdad, said: 'I would join the resistance if it were not for my children.'

Fighters often use his fields to carry out attacks, and the US army's response has left his fields full of unexploded mortar shells.

Ahmed said guerilla groups rarely attacked in the neighbourhoods where they lived, which has engendered resentment from some Iraqis. Foreign troops, however, have the same problem.

'What happens if [the Americans] come into my street and people are killed?' asked Shabo Doma, a restaurateur in the bustling Karada district, where most people's greatest allegiance is to their business.  'We can do nothing.'

Mr Doma, whose house is in Al-Adamiyah, said refugees from Fallujah were staying next door, and that they referred to the guerillas there as thieves.

'If they [the guerillas] are really resistance, why do they kill so many Iraqis?'



Sunnis, Shi'ites drop old hostilities to fight Americans