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Jihadi Volunteers Recall Bitter Memories, Betrayal In Iraq
Link courtesy of "Best of the Web." English translation is a little ragged.IslamOnline.net: After three tough weeks in Iraq, Tunisian volunteers who fought against the U.S.-led invasion forces returned home with haunting memories and bitter feeling of betrayal and hatred. The "haunting memories" are probably memories of U.S. firepower; the "betrayal" came from their own mullahs. "We left for Iraq as volunteers to join the Iraqis who are die-set [dead-set?]to defend their country, but returned victims to betrayal by some Iraqi army members and hatred â and even attacks â by some Iraqi civilians," recalled Al-Tayeb Bin Othman, a 27-year-old teacher. "They were only using us! Imagine that!" "Upon reaching Baghdad, we stayed for four days without any sort of military training and were later given "Beam me up, Ali! It's too hot down here!" "Amid the conflicting showdown, the governor of the eastern town of al-Kut called on the Arab volunteers to counter the attack by the U.S. forces in the absence of Iraqi army units," he recalled. The Iraqi army units had wisely decided to go somewhere else. "The battle was so ferocious and we lost 26 martyrs, all Arab volunteers," asserted Othman. That's 26 we don't have to haul to Guantanamo, I guess. He said that the Iraqi regular forces pulled out of the area in large and organized numbers and donned civilian clothes. It's called "desertion." "This left the situation on the ground as intense," he bitterly remembered. I think he means "lonely," as in "the Marines were coming and we were standing out there all alone." Talk about betrayal by some Iraqi army members were also rumored among the thick palls of smoke that turned reality of the situation there as blurry. Cheeze, enough with the metaphors there, Hemingway! "Arab volunteers were put in the frontlines "Disgruntle?" Does he work for the Tunisian Post Office or something? . . . adding 400 Arab volunteers breathed their last during the fighting. Good shooting, boys! We were stun-founded [stunned? dumbfounded?] when a Yemeni was about to "fire on a U.S. Apache helicopter gunship only to be ordered by an Iraqi officer 'Do not shoot⊠it is an Iraqi aircraft', he recalled. Who was that masked officer? Mohammed Saheed al-Shahaf? To add up to the plight of people leaving their country for the defense of another, the inhabitants of southern town of Nassiriyah welcomed Arab volunteers with nothing but gunfire. "We were fired at by the town residents, who killed three of us. They just shouted asking us 'why you are here? Did you came to defend Saddam?'" Emad, another volunteer, asserted. Maybe they were trying to tell you something--Like, maybe, they didn't want you there. . . . Selim, standing outside the Palestine Hotel 15 minutes before the U.S. marines drove in amid surprisingly scant resistance, Brave Sir Robin ran away! Bravely ran away away! "I was nabbed by the invading forces along with western human shields, then escorted by them back to my country through Jordan," he recalled. Selim was lucky he found a French acquaintance that helped shave and join the human shields. A Frenchman who shaves! Will wonders never cease.
Posted by: Mike 2003-04-21 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=13341 |