IslamMemo
Thursday, June 3, 2004US blew up
village wedding because of role in smuggling
American fugitive soldiers out of "Iraqi
hell." THE background to the American
bombing raid on a village wedding party on May 18,
during which the bridegroom was killed along with
over 40 other villagers, remains largely a mystery
in the international media. After the bomb raid, which the Pentagon claimed
was an attempted assault on Resistance fighters in
the area of al-Qa'im on the Syrian border, the
American Associated Press (AP) broadcast video of
the wedding, disproving the US military's claims.
Yet that only served to make the incident all the
more obscure. Now an Iraqi resident of the area has come
forward with information, published by Quds
Press and carried on Mafkarat al-Islam's
website, indicating that the real reason for the US
attack had been to strike at a village and its
elders who were involved, not so much in fighting
the occupation, as in helping US troops escape from
military service in Iraq. "The American occupation forces knew full well
that we were having a wedding party. They
intentionally bombed the wedding because the guests
included several tribal chiefs and prominent
persons from the western part of Iraq. The
occupation forces hated the people of this region
because they have been helping occupation soldiers
to escape from Iraq," said the uncle of the
martyred bridegroom, a local Iraqi resident who
gave his name as Abu 'Azzam. "The village of Makr adh-Dhib," Abu 'Azzam
explained, "is between ar-Rabtah and al-Qa'im, and
is 125km from Husaybah on the Iraqi Syrian border.
The people who live in the village are of the al-Bu
Fahd tribes, a part of the large Arab Dulaym tribal
federation in Iraq. They have played a big role in
providing the Resistance with supplies, equipment,
weapons, everything." The American forces came to the village lots of
times," Abu 'Azzam said, "searching for weapons and
Arab Resistance fighters. They never found
anything. But the thing that caused matters to come
to a head was that we in Makr adh-Dhib were
carrying out organized operations to smuggle
American soldiers who wanted to flee the hell in
Iraq out of the country. We were able to smuggle
large numbers of those soldiers through our
'windows', windows that only a small number of
people in the village know about. We would smuggle
them for a price that could go as high as $10,000
in some cases, plus the equipment that the soldier
carried," Abu 'Azzam explained. Abu 'Azzam told QudsPress, "we were able
to smuggle a number of US Army officers who were
fleeing from Iraq out of the country. The last
operation we carried out was just a few days before
the Americans bombed the wedding. In that operation
we smuggled 13 American soldiers out of Iraq. But
apparently the American forces got wind of what we
were doing. They encircled the village and took
people in for questioning. It was then that we came
to understand that they meant to do us harm,
because they were very angry." "After that smuggling operation and then their
interrogations, we realized that they were planning
something against us. We became wary and started to
make preparations to confront them. But we didn't
know that they would respond in such a cowardly
way," Abu 'Azzam explained. "That was on the night of the wedding of my
nephew Muhammad Rakad al-Fahdawi, and after
the invited guests had come -- people of the
village and the surrounding area including tribal
shaykhs and prominent personalities. During the
afternoon the bride was brought from ar-Ramadi and
it was after that that the American forces showed
up with their Jeeps and tanks and helicopters and
closed off the area. They pounded the wedding with
10 rockets of various types and also fired
automatic weapons," Abu 'Azzam recounted. The AP video, released days after the US attack,
showed the wedding in progress before the US attack
on May 18 that left more than 40 Iraqi celebrants
dead. 
Lawyer
for one guard claims picture shows his client
taking orders from others - will generals take
the stand?
| ![[]](../../std/dings/list.gif){kind=small}
write to David
Irving