Gość: Hawaiian
IP: *.59.79.119.Dial1.Stamford1.Level3.net
28.04.03, 04:39
walcza kamieniami z okupantami.
Funny thing.. okupanci nazywaja siebie WYZWOLICIELAMI. Nowy sczyt bezczelnosci?
sg.news.yahoo.com/030426/3/3ahhh.html
Saturday April 26, 8:09 PM
Stone-throwing children put troops on edge
By Kieran Murray
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - The love affair between U.S. troops and Iraqi children is turning sour.
As the invading troops pushed north towards Baghdad in the first weeks of the war, it was always the children in every town that came out first to smile, wave, give the thumbs-up and shout the same greeting: "Good, good, good!"
Happy to see a friendly face, the soldiers waved back and many handed out candies from their field rations.
But this correspondent, who has travelled with U.S. troops since the start of the war, has seen more and more of the encounters ending with some children, usually the older ones in their early teens, hurling stones at the soldiers.
It can be a Catch-22 situation for the troops. If they let the children swarm around them, they expose themselves to possible attack from adults who can use the cover to get close and throw in a hand grenade.
But if they push them back, it hurts their efforts to win over the civilian population, and can spark the stone throwing.
"It's frustrating. They're like little gnats that you can't get away," said Captain James McGahey, a company commander of the 101st Airborne Division who says almost every one of the patrols he sends out in the northern city of Mosul gets stoned.
"Everybody loves kids but it's impossible to love 300 of them when they all want to touch you, talk to you and grab you, especially when there are a few out there who want to chuck stones."
RAINING STONES
In one typical incident this weekend, a group of soldiers on foot patrol attracted an ever-increasing posse of children as they moved past a local fire station and on through a rough neighbourhood of Mosul.
By the time they reached a school building, at least 200 children and a small group of adults were around them, and the stones came raining in from about a dozen of the older kids.
"They were throwing them like they were pitching a baseball," said Sgt John McLean, who was hit on the helmet, in the back and on the heel.
The troops pulled away and took up a defensive position but even then the children and adults only dispersed when a warning shot was fired over their heads.
"Everyone tries to be as nice as we can with them but it does get difficult. They definitely impede the job we're trying to do because you have to put half your guys on keeping the children away," McLean said.
ROCKS AND PUPPIES
The problem is not confined to Mosul.
Crowds of 250-300 Iraqi teenagers hurled stones at U.S. Marines patrolling the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq on Thursday and Friday, officers said.
In Kerbala earlier this month, a group of children threw rocks and then kicked puppies over a wall and into a compound where U.S. troops were camped. When the soldiers handed the puppies back with a warning, it was only a few minutes before they were kicked back over the wall.