« Connor Math Quotes | Main | Common Human Decency »

March 27, 2003

Scratch a Fedayeen

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

There are numerous reports of Iraqi exiles returning to fight for the regime now that the US is there. I don't buy it. First, why would they return after 12 years running from Saddam to fight for him? Wouldn't they fear the same things they feared when they left?

Some of the tactics the Saddam Fedayeen are using are interesting, too. They hide amongst assumed civilians who are waving at the helicopters passing overhead, then stand up from under the tarp that covered them and fire at the helicopter's tail section. They apparently kidnap children in order to compel their parents to fight the coalition forces. They put women and children between them and us.

This all reminds me of the way the Al Qaeda-trained Somali militia fought - right down to the "technicals" (pickups armed with machine guns, rockets or similar). It reminds me of the way that the Taliban fought, and of the way that the Hezbollah fight.

Coupled with the unlikelyhood that the "returning Iraqis" are really returning Iraqis, I wonder if we won't find, when all this is over, that the Saddam Fedayeen is largely staffed by Al Qaeda fighters having escaped from Afghanistan.

Posted by jeff at March 27, 2003 1:08 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.caerdroia.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/196