Ahmed Abdel Razzaq went to Iraq to fight the Americans and die a martyr. He ended up in a US prison camp after the Iraqis he went to defend captured and sold him for $100. âI went to be a martyr in Godâs name,â said Razzaq, from poor north Lebanon, where Sunni Muslim militancy runs deep. âI went to jihad for the Iraqis but they are all traitors; the people, the army, the Kurds. They say Saddam was bad, but the Iraqis deserve 10 Saddams.â
| "My, these grapes are sour!" |
Motivated by religious zeal or Arab nationalism, busloads of Arab volunteers crossed Syria to go to Iraq before and during the war. Those who got home alive describe being abandoned by Iraqi minders as US forces reached Baghdad, or escaping Iraqis hostile to interference as the Baath government crumbled into chaos. Hundreds more were captured, often by Iraqi Kurds opposed to toppled president Saddam Hussein, and spent months in US custody at Camp Bucca in the desert near the southern port of Umm Qasr. A Syrian who fought in the Kurdish-run north said he walked and hitchhiked over 120 km to get back to the border after the Iraqi officers in charge of his cell fled with his passport. âWe fought Kurds. We looked for Americans but found none,â said one fighter, who was of Palestinian origin. âWe only knew Baghdad fell when some Arabs told us to lay down our arms because it was over... One day they were supporting Saddam, the next they were beating his statue with their shoes.â
Before Baghdad fell in April, Iraqi officials said more than 6,000 volunteers from across the Arab world - half of them would-be suicide bombers - were in the country. Some volunteers said they were taken to vast camps outside Baghdad for training, before being sent to the northern and southern fronts. They complained that the Iraqis armed them poorly, sending them into battle with too little ammunition or faulty guns.
| What the hell? Thought you wanted to get killed? |
Despite injury or incarceration, the volunteers said they would risk their lives again to defend Arabs from attack. âWe will help any Arab state that faces assault,â said Mohammed. â...They are coming to Syria next. The equipment they have brought is enough to occupy the whole Arab world.â
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