Samarra
Under U.S. Attack
By Ali al-Fadhily
07 September, 2007
Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Sep 6 (IPS)
- Residents are fleeing Samarra city in the face of fierce fighting
between U.S. forces and resistance groups.
New defiance is rising against
U.S. forces following military "crimes", fleeing residents
say.
"On Sunday the 26th
of August, there was fierce fighting between armed men and American
forces in the Armooshiya district, and I saw Americans evacuate many
of their soldiers by stretchers," a man who fled Samarra for Baghdad,
speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "As usual, Americans
took revenge by bombing the district."
A woman who also fled Samarra
for the capital in recent days, who gave her name as Iman, told IPS
that the U.S. military had "committed another crime in the medicine
factory residence area" when "they bombed a house there and
killed a woman with her seven children."
The Sunni and anti-occupation
Muslim Scholars Association issued a statement confirming these two
assaults, and condemning the "ugly crimes" of occupation forces
in Samarra. The Association accused the U.S. military of attempting
to break the spirit of Iraqis who reject the U.S. occupation.
"They think their crimes
would stop Iraqis from demanding their rights for liberty and prosperity,
but the results are always different from what the American leaders
hope," Sheikh Taha from the Muslim Scholars' Association told IPS
in Baghdad.
"They are only pushing
more Iraqis to be armed against them, and you can see that the facts
on the ground are the opposite of what they tell their people. Their
soldiers are getting killed every day and they (U.S. military) are losing
in Iraq."
A young man spoke with IPS
on condition of anonymity outside a Sunni mosque in Baghdad where refugees
from Samarra were arriving.
"We will be the thorn
that makes Bush's life more difficult," he told IPS. "I am
only here to ensure the safety of my family, then I will go back to
my city to defend it against all strangers."
Located 125 km north of Baghdad,
Samarra has seen fierce fighting between the Iraqi resistance and U.S.
military units since the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq in
2003.
The Sunni dominated city
of 200,000 has suffered continuing raids by U.S. and Iraqi forces that
have hit civilian life hard.
The resistance seems to have
grown as the attacks have continued.
"Four years of occupation
have caused this city a great deal of damage," Thul-Faqar Ali,
a lawyer and human rights activist who fled Samarra to Baghdad told
IPS. "It is true that there was strong resistance to the occupation,
but most of those who got killed, injured or detained were innocent
civilians. The U.S. occupation forces in Samarra were so brutal that
they conducted many executions on site."
One of the first instances
of brutal U.S. military execution of Iraqis in Samarra came in 2004
when eyewitnesses told the press that U.S. soldiers threw two young
men into the Tigris River and watched one of them drown.
Marwan Hassoun, the surviving
Iraqi, later testified in a U.S. military court that he and his cousin
were stopped on their return to Samarra and forced at gunpoint into
the Tigris River as U.S. soldiers laughed. The cousin who died was named
as 19-year-old Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun.
"I could hear them laughing,"
Marwan told a reporter of the Jan. 3, 2004 incident, recalling how U.S.
soldiers pushed him and his cousin into the river. "They were behaving
like they were watching a comedy on stage."
A U.S. Army sergeant involved
in the incident, Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins, 33, was later acquitted
of involuntary manslaughter but convicted of assault. Many other such
instances have been reported since.
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