- MAHMUDIYA -- On the main
road through Mahmudiya, being recognised as a foreigner has become a matter
of life and death.
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- Local doctors spelt this out when they urged me to cover
my head on leaving the hospital in the town, 15 miles south of Baghdad.
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- The death of an American missionary on the dusty road
south of the town has unnerved foreigners and the Iraqis who deal with
them.
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- Plenty of foreigners have died in Iraq, but the road
through Mahmudiya has become the scene for a new type of killing: drive-by
shootings in which foreign civilians are the targets.
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- The death of the Rev John Kelley, a Baptist missionary
from Rhode Island, on Saturday, has set alarm bells ringing for several
reasons. For one, it revealed that American missionaries were inside Iraq
trying to set up new churches and, presumably, find converts.
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- That will be deeply offensive to the vast majority of
Iraqis, who are Muslims. The unwelcome presence of the missionaries could
become a new source of friction between Iraqis and their already deeply
unpopular American occupiers.
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- If Mr Kelley's death were an isolated incident, it would
be easy to assume that he and his colleagues were deliberately tracked
down. But it was the second incident of its type on the road, and in the
first it was foreign journalists and the Iraqis working with them who were
the targets. Two Iraqis working for the American network CNN were killed
when the two-car convoy they were travelling in came under fire near the
town a few weeks ago.
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- After the two ambushes, foreign journalists and aid workers
became nervous about taking the road through Mahmudiya, the main route
south to the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala. Ten months into the
American occupation, the roads of Iraq are becoming more dangerous.
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- Doctors at Mahmudiya hospital said yesterday that a taxi
drove to the front gate on Saturday with all its windows shattered and
a passenger in the front dead in his seat. "The driver was screaming
'Help me. Help me'," said a doctor who would not give his name.
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- The dead man was Mr Kelley. In the back of the taxi were
three other American missionaries: the Rev Kirk DiVietro, the Rev David
Davis and a fourth whose identity is not known. Though their injuries were
slight, they were too terrified to get out of the taxi until doctors had
calmed them.
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- The taxi driver told hospital staff that the group was
on the outskirts of Mahmudiya heading north to Baghdad after a visit to
ancient Babylon. A red Opel started overtaking on the inside and those
inside opened fire on the taxi. There were four people in the Opel armed
with Kalashnikovs, the taxi driver said.
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- The doctors denied American reports that the injured
men had been found by chance at the hospital by a routine American patrol.
They said that they had informed the Iraqi police, who had passed on the
details to American soldiers stationed in Mahmudiya. "It is our responsibility
to help injured people," said one.
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- The four missionaries were on their way back to their
hotel in Baghdad. They probably travelled without bodyguards in the belief
that, as civilians, they would not be targets for Iraqi gunmen.
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- Until recently, relatively few foreign civilians have
been attacked travelling on their own in Iraq. Attacks on foreign civilians
have been aimed at large targets, such as the bombings of the UN and Red
Cross in Baghdad. But the nature of their work in Iraq meant that the missionaries
were putting themselves in danger.
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- Although it is a Sunni town, Mahmudiya lies outside the
so-called Sunni Triangle where most resistance attacks began. But the resistance
has spread far beyond that area now.
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- One doctor said: "Fallujah may be the symbol of
the resistance, but we have more attacks on the Americans in Mahmudiya
now. You should stay here. You will see plenty of incidents, I promise
you."
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- The Mahmudiya road has become renowned for attacks on
American military convoys. After this attack, foreign civilians may soon
start avoiding the road altogether.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=492401
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