Word: fedayeen
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Starting in February, Saddam himself telegraphed his intention to use unorthodox forces to hinder a U.S. invasion in televised appearances certainly monitored by U.S analysts. Maybe they dismissed his declarations as bombast. Last week he even listed Baath militia, tribal warriors and the Fedayeen by name when explaining how he would triumph, and then publicly commended them: "Under various names and descriptions, the Iraqi mujahedin are inflicting serious losses on the enemy...
...southern cities and towns by taking full advantage of American reluctance to cause civilian casualties: they fire from machine-gun-toting pickup trucks parked at mosques and hide out in hospitals. Unusually strict rules of engagement prevent allied soldiers from shooting first at anyone who appears unarmed, which gives Fedayeen in street clothes a better opportunity to hit and run. The result is greater jeopardy for allied soldiers. But Washington knows it would pay a significant political price if it ordered its forces to abandon those restraints...
Civilians, meanwhile, continually wandered out of town to encourage and even beg the U.S. soldiers to take Najaf. They said fedayeen irregulars were forcing local members of the al-Quds militia to fight by gathering their families and threatening to shoot them if they did not oppose the Americans. At one point, locals came out to thank the Americans for killing the area's Baath party leader, who they said had been executing civilians. The Baath leader, they said, had been killed in an air strike on a fedayeen stronghold...
...Iraqi attacks died down, the 101st Airborne Division began arriving to release the armored units for other missions. Brigadier General Benjamin Freakley, assistant division commander of the 101st, briefed the leaders of the companies that would be encircling Najaf. Everyone expected the remaining fedayeen to attempt a break toward Baghdad even if it meant running the 101st's gauntlet. But if the fedayeen stayed and conscripted the locals at gunpoint again, Freakley faced a moral conundrum: "Imagine someone walking into your home and saying either you fight or we will kill your wife and daughters. They are doing what...
Khalid, a 43-year-old Iraqi, won't give his last name for fear of reprisal if Saddam's regime survives. He has a bullet wound in his right calf. He says that five days before troops entered Iraq, fedayeen forces came to the home of his extended family in Diwaniyah, kicked in the door and took all the men between the ages of 20 and 60. Khalid was later taken to Nasiriyah, where he and a ragtag group of some 40 civilians were handed old Kalashnikovs without ammunition and pushed in front of Iraqi soldiers as they faced down...