Iraqi rebels will fight on
2004-11-21 20:56
Baghdad - Islamist insurgents are determined to pursue their guerrilla war against US and Iraqi forces in spite of the devastating military assault on Fallujah, a militant leader hiding inside the city has told an AFP correspondent.
"The resistance is not only in Fallujah. We are here to draw the Americans into a trap, but most of the resistance is now located in other cities," said the leader, who asked to be identified only as "Abu Mohammed".
This leader of the Mujahedeen advisory council was speaking to the AFP correspondent in Fallujah on November 13.
He was still alive on November 19 when the AFP correspondent last saw him.
By then, US and Iraqi troops had all but wrapped up their operation in the restive city, claiming to have reconquered Fallujah, killed more than 1 200 rebels and detained 1 450.
The rebel leader told the correspondent that the only fighters who stayed in Fallujah to confront the multinational and government forces were "suicide commandos".
"The battle will take time because even if the Americans occupy the city, street guerrilla (warfare) will continue and we are gradually going to bring back the fighters we had extracted," said the rebel chief.
His face nearly hidden by a bushy black beard, the young leader always carried his satellite phone with him but no weapons.
"The resistance is also outside. There is real co-ordination, a unified organisation," he explained.
On the night of Noveber 12, Abu Mohammed came to pick the journalist up in his car and took him to the heart of the Jolan neighbourhood, in the northest of this city of 300 000.
They entered a building. Holes had been punched in the walls to allow the fighters to move from one building to another without exposing themselves to sniper fire in the street.
They walked through six homes before reaching a tunnel which led to another little room where four other rebel leaders were squatting on the floor.
The house above them had been completely destroyed and there is no access to the building other than through the tunnel, the existence of which US marines were unaware of.
As the rebel leaders discussed the operation, militants entered the room with propaganda flyers.
One of the fighters said of the flyers: "We have to send 6 000 of them to Baghdad."
The document claimed that the insurgency had inflicted huge losses on US military and Iraqi government troops.
The reporter and his minder left the building in the middle of the night and reached the southern neighbourhood of Nazal.
There, they met three rebels with whom the AFP correspondent spent most of November 13.
Black balaclavas
The three fighters constantly wore black balaclavas. Only one of them took his off briefly to have his picture taken by the reporter, asking him to send it to his family if he died in combat.
- SAPA