- FALLUJAH -- The farmers from
Buisa village, near where the giant US Chinook came down, passed round
a piece of twisted metalthey had taken from the wreckage. Overhead half
a dozen American Black Hawk helicopters swooped and dived over the crash
site as if fearing more missiles might be fired at them.
-
- A farmer pointed the piece of wreckage derisively at
one of the Black Hawks, but the others shouted at him: "Put it down!
They might think it is a gun and fire on us."
-
- "I am not afraid," he said, and waved the metal
above his head again before it was wrestled away from him.
-
- The farmers all said they were pleased with the destruction
of the helicopter. "I am so happy," said one. "How would
you feel if somebody came and occupied your country? The Americans say
they are bringing us democracy, but all they want is our oil."
-
- Saadoun Jaralla, a wheat farmer, added: "The Americans
are pigs. We will hold a celebration because this helicopter went down,
a big celebration. The Americans are enemies of mankind."
-
- (More Unreported US Casualties)
-
- The attack on the helicopter was not the only action
by guerrillas in Fallujah yesterday morning. Close to a bridge over the
Euphrates river were the burned out remains of a white GMC truck, which
had been blown up by a rocket or a bomb.
-
- Eyewitnesses said they had seen four armed Americans
being taken away on stretchers. The remains of the truck had been dragged
off by the US army, but small boys were playing around some blazing wreckage
that had been left.
-
- On the other side of the bridge a crowd had gathered
around a black minibus, its outer shell torn by shrapnel. "It looks
as if something exploded inside it," said Captain Taha of the local
police. "Look at the way the metal around the holes in its sides is
pointing outwards."
-
- Bystanders said they had heard a US aircraft just before
the minibus was hit. They believed US soldiers might have thought it contained
the guerrillas who blew up the truck.
-
- One man in the minibus, Thaher Mohammed Horin, was killed.
Nine other passengers were wounded. A young man, Amr Abbas, was lying on
a stretcher with a bloody bandage covering wounds to his torso. He appeared
to be unconscious but suddenly screamed out: "Please give me some
drugs for the pain!"
-
- These were not the only people to die or come close to
death in Fallujah yesterday. As we were leaving the hospital, a pick-up
truck, driven at high speed, arrived and a man soaked with blood was carried
in.
-
- "He was a shepherd who was blown up by an old cluster
bomb from the war," said Captain Taha after talking to the man driving
the pick-up. "He has a bad wound to the head and I doubt if he will
live."
-
- The shooting down of the helicopter is a serious blow
to US prestige among Iraqis.
-
- US officials have recently warned against the danger
of shoulder-launched missiles, thousands of which have been scattered from
Saddam Hussain's arsenal. The use of such missiles is believed to have
resulted in the downing of at least two American helicopters in the past
six months.
-
- The latest attacks also confirm fears that technology
used by anti-US insurgents has become increasingly sophisticated. They
have moved from home-made roadside bombs to rocket-fired grenades on American
patrols and the use of vehicles crammed with explosives and detonated by
suicide bombers.
-
- The Chinook has emerged as a dramatic new target. The
10-ton helicopter, which has a crew of four, is the military's most versatile
heavy-lift helicopter, used primarily for troop movements and transporting
artillery.
-
- When we told the news to a group of young men in Baghdad,
they cheered. One said: "This is the right way to attack American
troops. It is not like those suicide bombs, which only kill Iraqis."
-
- As several Black Hawk helicopters and dozens of US soldiers
continued to examine the smoking remains of the crash, local villagers
proudly displayed blackened pieces of wreckage to visitors.
-
- "This was a new lesson from the resistance, a lesson
to the greedy aggressors," said one. "They'll never be safe until
they get out of our country."
-
- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=459899
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