- SAMARA, Iraq (AP) -- A former
Iraqi general who claims to be part of the insurgency against US troops
says the guerilla war around this "Sunni Triangle" city is being
waged by small groups fighting on their own without direction from Saddam
Hussein or others.
-
- He and two other Samara men, who said they are in separate
guerilla units, insisted in interviews with The Associated Press that their
fight was not aimed at returning Saddam to power. They said it was about
ending the US-led occupation and restoring Iraqi rule.
-
- "I am fighting for my country - not Saddam Hussein
- to get rid of the infidels. Very few people are fighting for him. They
gave up on him at the end of the war," one of the men, an unemployed
electrical engineer, said.
-
- Despite the Bush administration's statement that it wants
to turn over sovereignty by next June and eventually withdraw its troops,
the men said they believe the Americans were here to pillage Iraq and steal
its oil.
-
- All three said their guerilla groups were fighting without
instructions from Saddam or any other contact with Iraq's former leader.
They also said there was no shortage of potential fighters among Iraqi
males, most of whom have at least rudimentary military training from compulsory
army service during Saddam's rule.
-
- The men, who described themselves as loyalists of the
ousted Baath ruling party, were interviewed separately last week. They
agreed to discuss the fighting around Samara only if they were not identified,
to avoid making them targets of US troops.
-
- Their claims to be active in guerilla operations could
not be independently confirmed, but there was some indirect evidence that
supported their accounts. Without providing details on a site or timing,
the engineer said a bomb had been planted on a nearby railway in preparation
for attacking a train; three days later, on Saturday, an explosion derailed
a train causing damage but no injuries.
-
- The men also gave details of other planned attacks, but
AP was unable to confirm whether they occurred. Lt. Col. Ryan Gonsalves,
the senior U.S. officer in Samara, would not comment on that question yesterday,
saying he did not necessarily know about every attack in the area.
-
- The former general, whose 30 years of military service
under Saddam is well known in this city of 250,000 people, said he was
mostly involved in planning attacks and giving advice on weapons. The other
men - the engineer and a wholesaler - said they participated in attacks.
-
- The general described the guerillas as long on enthusiasm
and commitment but short on training and organisation, and he said they
did not co-ordinate their activities. Nevertheless, they could cause trouble
for US troops, he argued, because the Americans went about in small units
that were easier to attack.
-
- Still, most of the almost daily attacks on US troops
in the Samara area cause little damage, although the toll has increased
recently. In the first casualties here in months, two US soldiers died
and four were wounded in an attack on October 24, and two more were killed
and three wounded by a roadside bomb on November 13.
-
- The US Army occupied three bases in Samara until Saturday,
when without notice the troops moved to a new post 10km north of the city.
Primary responsibility for Samara was shifted to Iraqi police, but US troops
still patrol.
-
- At least nine civilians have been killed and 31 wounded
since October 27 as a result of guerilla fire or US counter strikes, doctors
at Samara General Hospital say. Insurgents often attack from residential
areas, witnesses say.
-
- "Our tactic is mostly made up of 'attack and run,"'
said the 50-year-old general, wearing the traditional long Arab robe and
sitting cross-legged on the floor of his home.
-
- The interview was not arranged in advance. A relative
of the general took an AP reporter to the general's house without invitation
in hopes of plumbing his military expertise for an overview of the guerilla
movement in Samara.
-
- To the surprise of the general's family sitting around
him, he began giving details of his own involvement in the insurgency.
-
- He said there was no central organisation to the resistance
in Samara, but added that attacks by small, independent groups needed only
"simple planning".
-
- US officers also say guerilla activities in Iraq are
not co-ordinated by a central command. Last week, General John Abizaid,
head of the US Central Command, estimated there were no more than 5000
insurgents across the country and said the most dangerous were the Baathist
loyalists, who were concentrated in the Sunni Triangle that was Saddam's
centre of support.
-
- The engineer said he specialised in setting off roadside
bombs. But he said he also had fired mortars at US bases and shot at soldiers.
"We work along with about 20 other men," he said.
-
- Meeting with a reporter at the house of an acquaintance,
he said he had only a half hour to speak because he was on his to way to
ambush a US convoy on the Samara-Tikrit highway.
-
- At an interview the next day, the engineer said he and
eight other men in three cars used machine guns to shoot at the tyres of
a truck in a convoy carrying food for US troops. He said the driver, a
foreign civilian, unhooked the cab and drove off. The other trucks also
got away, and nobody was hurt, he said.
-
- The engineer said it took US helicopters at least 12
minutes to respond to an attack. "We counted. By the time they get
there we would be long gone," he said.
-
- A father of four, he said weapons are readily available
from Iraqis who looted arsenals in the chaos after Saddam's regime collapsed.
He said his group has machine guns, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades,
SPG-9 anti-tank missiles and Strela anti-aircraft missiles.
-
- In an interview arranged by the engineer, the merchant
said he mostly co-ordinates operations of his guerilla group but had joined
in several attacks, most recently on November 9. In that attack, he said,
a convoy of "CIA cars" was ambushed with machine-gun fire.
-
- "I do whatever I am capable of to fight the Americans,"
he said at his home where photos of Saddam were plastered on the walls.
"I hit anything I can. We Iraqis know everything about weapons - mortars,
guns, RPGs, you name it."
-
- The businessman, who said he had 14 children, said his
group has about 30 members.
-
- The other two men declined to estimate the number of
fighters in Samara. "All I can say is that the number of mujahedeen
(holy warriors) is increasing and not decreasing," the general said.
-
- Ignoring his wife's pleas to stop talking about his activities,
the general said his group was in contact with guerilla cells in Fallujah
and other parts of the Sunni Triangle and sometimes received arms from
them. The engineer said his unit was not in touch with fighters outside
Samara.
-
- The general said the fighting would not stop until US
and other troops get out.
-
- "We don't care who replaces them," he said.
"The important thing is to throw out the occupation."
-
- Copyright 2003 News Limited.
-
- http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7922970%255E1702,00.html
|
