Army Times: Anti-American resistance speaks out

[lebkuchen]

http://armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2169332.php

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The fisherman had just decided to take up arms, and he shook with fear as the American convoy approached his hiding place. As he later told it, he fired a rocket-propelled grenade into a Humvee and ran away as fast as he could.
Nobody gave chase, he said, and in the time that has passed since that April attack, his band of seven guerrillas has slipped into an easy rhythm of attacking American convoys every few days.

“I catch fish in the morning and Americans at night,” he said. “Catching Americans is easier than catching fish.”

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He insisted he wasn’t motivated by any loyalty to Saddam Hussein or principled Islamic opposition to the U.S. presence. He said he was driven by what he sees as the Americans’ heavy-handed treatment of ordinary Iraqis during anti-guerrilla operations.

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Some of his claims are highly dubious — for instance, that the Americans are losing more dead than they’re saying and secretly burying them in the desert. But such stories are widely believed by Iraqis and add to the aura of the resistance.

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He said he joined the resistance in late April, after U.S. troops searched his neighborhood one night. He said they handcuffed innocent men, touched women inappropriately and hit a widow with a rifle butt. He also claimed they stole money.

“The Americans always say they are against terrorism, but they are conducting terrorism right here in Iraq,” he said. “If they would not come into our houses, we wouldn’t have anything to do with them. Can’t they occupy us without humiliating us?”

<snip>

The United States hasn’t reported more than three soldiers killed in any attack since the war.

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yet. It's a foregone conclusion that eventually, they will be successful in another Beruit-like hit.