Zarqawi vows more fighting
2005-05-11 15:56
Dubai - The group of al-Qaeda's Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has denied US charges that it used human shields in fighting with US forces but vowed more attacks against the Americans, according to a statement posted on the internet on Wednesday.
"They accuse our mujahedeen (holy warriors) of using human shields. But you are deceiving yourselves, worshippers of the cross... Wasn't it the Americans who used women and children as shields in Fallujah?" said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified.
The US military waged a major assault on Fallujah in November in a bid to oust rebels from the city west of Baghdad.
"Our mujahedeen rush to death... they want to die as much as you care to live," added the statement, signed by the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Land of Two Rivers.
The US military said on Monday that insurgents used patients as human shields in a weekend battle in a hospital in Hadithah, 260km northwest of Baghdad, that left four US troops dead.
The group led by Jordanian-born Zarqawi, who has a $25m price on his head, has claimed some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq since the downfall of Saddam Hussein two years ago.
In the statement, the group vowed more attacks by its "martyrdom-seekers" against US forces in western Iraq.
Make them 'taste fear and terror'
Dozens of people were killed in a string of blasts in Iraq on Wednesday as US troops battled insurgents in the lawless western hinterland during a massive offensive against Zarqawi's network dubbed "Operation Matador".
Another internet statement attributed to the group said Zarqawi's fighters had "made the Americans taste fear and terror... and they responded by bombarding the houses of helpless people" in Al-Qaim near the Syrian border.
"Dozens of Americans, even more than 100, have been killed," the statement said, adding that its fighters were pursuing their "jihad and delivering blows to God's enemies".
In a third statement, whose authenticity also could not be established, Zarqawi's outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on Tuesday which wounded three Iraqi policemen at a river police compound in Baghdad.
"One of the lions of the martyrdom-seeking brigade carried out a heroic operation against a police post on Abu Nawas street on Tuesday, hitting several of the guardians of the Jews and Crusaders," it said.