Word: fedayeen
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...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...
...easily. In the second week of the campaign, advancing coalition troops faced up to one of the fundamental miscalculations of the early days of the war: blasting conventional Iraqi forces hasn't been enough. They also have to go into towns and take out Baath Party officials and Fedayeen fighters loyal to Saddam. Only then can one even begin to talk about prospects of local people-circumspect after the U.S. encouraged previous uprisings that were later crushed-partying in the streets. "Only when there is physical presence can people feel safe," says Sergeant Major David Howell, with 3/4 Battalion...
...hamlet of Hajil, American helicopters overhead report white pickups, the preferred ride for the fedayeen, leaving town. A yellow-and-white taxi makes the mistake of pulling out in front of a tank, and the machine gunner opens up. Rounds explode across the car, and the driver is hit in the thigh and the back. He is treated and medevacked...
...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...
...Abbas, 30, a carpenter and father of two, says his whole family was mowed down at once. His story: Fedayeen in civilian clothes rolled an antiaircraft gun into his backyard. Abbas, having seen his neighbor protest and get a bullet in the head in front of his children, didn't say a word. "They started firing at American helicopters," he says. "The Americans started returning fire ... We had to leave...