Fallujah
Fears A 'Genocidal Strategy'
By Ali al-Fadhily
31 March, 2007
Inter
Press Service
FALLUJAH, Mar 30 (IPS) - Iraqis in the volatile al-Anbar
province west of Baghdad are reporting regular killings carried out
by U.S. forces that many believe are part of a 'genocidal' strategy.
Since the mysterious explosion
at the Shia al-Askari shrine in Samara in February last year, more than
100 Iraqis have been killed daily on average, without any forceful action
by the Iraqi government and the U.S. military to stop the killings.
U.S. troops and Iraqi security
forces working with them are also executing people seized during home
raids and other operations, residents say.
"Seventeen young men
were found executed after they were arrested by U.S. troops and Fallujah
police," 40-year-old Yassen of Fallujah told IPS. "My two
sons have been detained by police, and I am terrified that they will
have the same fate. They are only 17 and 18 years old."
Residents of Fallujah say
the local police detention centre holds hundreds of men, who have had
no legal representation.
Others are killed by random
fire that has long become routine for U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. Sa'ad,
a 25-year-old from the al-Thubbat area of western Fallujah was killed
in such firing.
"The poor guy kept running
home every time he saw U.S. soldiers," a man from his neighbourhood,
speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "He used to say:
Go inside or the Americans will kill you." Sa'ad is said by neighbours
to have developed a mental disability.
He was recently shot and
killed by U.S. soldiers when they opened fire after their patrol was
struck by a roadside bomb.
Last week, U.S. military
fire severely damaged the highest minaret in Fallujah after three soldiers
were killed in an attack. What was seen as reprisal fire on the minaret
has angered residents.
"They hate us because
we are Muslims, and no one can argue with that any more," 65- year-old
Abu Fayssal who witnessed the event told IPS. "They say they are
fighting al- Qeada but they are only capable of killing our sons with
their genocidal campaign and destroying our mosques."
Others believe occupation
forces have another sinister strategy.
"It is our people killing
each other now as planned by the Americans," Abdul Sattar, a 45-
year-old lawyer and human rights activist in Fallujah told IPS. "They
recruited Saddam's security men to control the situation by well-known
methods like hanging people by their legs and electrifying them in order
to get information. Now they are executing them without trial."
IPS has obtained photographs
of an elderly man who residents say was executed last month by U.S.
soldiers.
"Last month was full
of horrifying events," a retired police officer from Fallujah told
IPS. "Three men were executed by American soldiers in the al-Bu
Issa tribal area just outside Fallujah. One of them was 70 years old
and known as a very good man, and the others were his relatives. They
were asleep when the raid was conducted."
Another three men from the
same tribe were executed similarly in ar-Rutba town near the Jordanian
border. Their tribe did not carry out the usual burial ceremony for
fear that more people would be killed. Instead, a cousin performed a
religious ceremony in Amman in Jordan.
"Seven people were executed
in al-Qa'im recently, at the Syrian border," Khalid Haleem told
IPS on telephone from al-Qa'im. "They were gathering at a friend's
place for dinner when Americans surrounded the house, with armoured
vehicles with helicopters covering them from the air. Those killed were
good men and we believe the Americans were misinformed."
Adding to the violence are
U.S.-backed Shia militias which regularly raid Sunni areas under the
eyes of the U.S. and Iraqi army. Residents of Fallujah, Ramadi, and
especially Baghdad have regularly reported to IPS over the last two
years that Shia militiamen are allowed through U.S. military cordons
into Sunni neighbourhoods to conduct raids.
Last month, residents report,
more than 100 men aged 20 to 40 were executed by Shia militias in Iskandariya
40 km south of Baghdad and Tal Afar 350 km northwest of the capital.
Another 50 were detained by the Iraqi Army's fifth division, that many
believe is the biggest death squad in the country.
A U.S. military spokesperson
in Baghdad told IPS that their troops "use caution and care when
conducting home raids" and "in no way support Shi'ite death
squads and militias."
In the face of the U.S.-backed
violence, most Iraqis now openly support attacks against occupation
forces.
"The genocidal Americans
are paying for all that," a young man from Fallujah told IPS. "They
seem to be in need of another lesson by the lions of Fallujah and Anbar."
He was referring to the intensive resistance attacks in and around Fallujah
that have killed dozens of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers this month.
According to the U.S. military,
at least 1,194 U.S. soldiers have died in al-Anbar province since the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The number is far higher than
in any other province in Iraq.
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