Two dead soldiers, eight more to go, vow avengers of Iraqi girl's rape

[kurth]

Two dead soldiers, eight more to go, vow avengers of Iraqi girl's rape
By Akeel Hussein in Mahmoudiyah and Colin Freeman
(Filed: 09/07/2006)

The American soldiers accused of raping an Iraqi girl and then murdering her and her family may have provoked an insurgent revenge plot in which two of their comrades were abducted and beheaded last month, it has been claimed. Pte Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pte Thomas Tucker, 25, were snatched from a checkpoint near the town of Yusufiyah on June 16 in what was thought at the time to be random terrorist retaliation for the killing of the al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an American air strike two days earlier.

Now, however, residents of the neighbouring town of Mahmoudiyah have told The Sunday Telegraph that their kidnap was carried out to avenge the attack on a local girl Abeer Qassim Hamza, 15, and her family. They claim that insurgents have vowed to kidnap and kill another eight American troops to exact a 10-to-one revenge for the rape and murder of the girl. Locals in Mahmoudiyah, a Sunni market town in the heart of the "Triangle of Death" south of Baghdad, say relatives of the dead girl's family with contacts to insurgent groups asked them to take a "blood for blood" revenge....

Because of the sensitivities in Arab society about reporting sexual crimes, they were unwilling to press either the US army or the Iraqi police to deal with the case through the courts. Saba Shukr, 44, a Sunni sheikh at al-Aziz mosque in Mahmoudiyah, said: "We knew about this crime but the mujahideen brought revenge when they kidnapped two American soldiers in Yusufiyah. They are still waiting to kidnap and kill another eight soldiers, as the price of the death of the girl should be the death of 10 Americans. "I am sure about this. The mujahideen promised us revenge."

One of the family's neighbours, Abu Hazem, 51, said: "We went to visit the cousin of the family who lived about half a mile away to tell them the news. He said, 'Please keep it secret and we will take revenge on the Americans the quiet way'." ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/09/wirq09.xml

[Ian David]

1. Doesn't sound to me like they hate freedom. n/t

[uppityperson]

2. Can families of those 2 dead soldiers get compensation or sue military

Since the military let the rape, murders, burning happen and covered it up?

[americanstranger]

3. I doubt it.

When someone signs up to be a soldier, they pretty much sign away any chance for legal recourse should something bad happen.

I'd assume that the families would not have much chance for legal action, since the soldiers volunteered. But I'm not a lawyer, and I don't even play one on TV or anything.

- as

[uppityperson]

4. I didn't think so, but was just wondering.

5 guys do a war crime. Local people kill others in revenge. Now what? Sounds like 8 more and an attempt to sweep it under the rug here. (Abeer was almost 15, almost old enough to get married with the consent of her parents, see? So it just doesn't matter forget about the fact that there is no such thing as consent to rape/murder/mutilate consent and forget about the little sister and parents who were also killed) Bah.

You don't even play a lawer on tv? Oh well.

[Erika]

5. Violence begets violence

We're winning the minds and hearts of Iraqis, one rape of a young teenage girl, at a time.

[Igel]

6. Observer's paradox.

This might actually be the reason. But we have no further information than we had a week ago. This is irrelevant because it's too late to discount simply hearing an echo.

Having had it bandied in the international media for a week about how this might be retribution by insurgents, the locals offer back the suggestion that's been suggested.

For a month or two, not a word. But as soon as it can be used to scare Americans, it's no longer a secret. Sure. Truth is more lowly ranked than honor.

The observer's paradox is why we don't tell the subjects of our experiments exactly what it is that we're investigating. Pissing in your own well is bad form.