tuluum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iraq Women Alone, Distraught as U.S. Rounds Up Men (article) Iraq Women Alone, Distraught as U.S. Rounds Up Men Fri January 2, 2004 09:10 AM ET
(Page 1 of 2) By Suleiman al-Khalidi BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Khadija's eldest son Ahmad was killed in battle during the war that toppled Saddam Hussein. Now U.S. troops have rounded up her husband and four other sons, leaving the impoverished Iraqi woman to fend for herself. "What do I do now? They took my husband and my kids and it's only me now," said Khadija, who like all women in her small hamlet on the outskirts of the flashpoint town of Baquba wears a black veil. "My son is a martyr. My husband was taken and they took the rest of my children," she said in her mud and stone-brick house, which has plastic in the windows because the glass was shattered during the U.S. raid which captured her husband and sons. Baquba lies in a predominantly Sunni Muslim area, where support for Saddam is relatively strong and resentment of the U.S.-led occupation runs deep. Under constant attack from guerrillas, U.S. troops have rounded up dozens of Iraqis they say are linked to the insurgency. U.S. troops arrested several men during a raid in Bab el-Darb this week, leaving distraught women to fend for themselves, a rare situation in a conservative Muslim community with strong family ties. Khadija's story is echoed by many women in Bab el-Darb, a farming area of orchards and palms trees watered by tributaries of the Tigris river. SHIVERING Talia, 53, recounted how American soldiers dynamited her front gate before taking away her husband Abed, 65, and three sons. "The women were left. My sons and their father were tied up and taken away. For three hours they were tied holding their heads to the wall. Abed was barefoot and without his headdress," Talia said. "The Americans entered when we were asleep. They encircled us and blew up our door. They took us out and the women were left in the cold, shivering." said Talia, who is now left with her daughters-in-law and their young children. Locals say the raid left smashed windows, walls damaged by shrapnel and some children injured. One woman, Fatima, said her son Ismail, 12, was wounded in the chest and that her 50-year-old husband, a retired army major, had nothing to hide even though he was detained. The U.S. military says the raids are necessary to crush an insurgency that has killed more than 200 U.S. troops. But the incensed and humiliated men left behind warn the raids could lead to more attacks. "When I see my wife pushed like a dog against the wall, as an Iraqi Muslim, will I keep silent?" said Mohammad Obeid, a trader. A growing nationalist spirit is coupled with support for Saddam, himself a member of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority. "In Saddam's era we never saw this," said retired civil servant Ahmad Jibouri. "We will not stay with our hands tied for ever." Mansour Saleh, a shopkeeper, warned: "If these raids continue we will all become terrorists." �
From smh.ccom..au 6:54 a.m. - Thursday, Jan. 08, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||