Locals report being forced into insurgency

Mahmoud Kaduri, 29, recalled bitterly how he was forced to work with the insurgency currently fighting US and Iraqi government troops. “They told me to work with them or my son would be killed,” he recalled. “I had no option, I had to save my child,” he added. After sending his son to neigbouring Jordan for safety, he told his tormentors that he would no longer work with them. “They wanted me to attack a police car with a mortar,” he recounted. “But when I saw there were children nearby, I refused.” They responded by shooting him in the stomach. “It was my lucky day,” Kaduri recalled, from his hospital bed in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. “I would have been shot in the head, but was saved by people from the neighbourhood who came to my aid.” Kaduri is one of dozens of Iraqis who have reportedly been forced to help insurgents against the US-led occupation in exchange for the lives of loved ones, according to officials at the Ministry of Interior. Ministry officials say few people survive working for insurgents, and are usually killed once they had finished the desired work. “Some are paid for it, but others are forced to do it,” said Hussein Kamal, Iraq’s deputy Interior Minister. Living in fear Many families reportedly live in fear of relatives being pressed into work for the insurgents who are being led by the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It was reported on Tuesday that al-Zarqawi may have been killed in clashes in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday. DNA samples are being examined to determine if the wanted terrorist is dead. “Insurgents took my son in the middle of the night, and said if he didn’t help them in their attacks, they would kill me and his father,” Samia Rawi, 43, said. “So he went, and never came back again.” When her son’s body was discovered shortly afterward riddled with bullets, there was a message on his chest: “He didn’t shoot the Americans,” it read. “This is the price for his betrayal.” Mariam Kubaissy, a resident of Talafar, in northern Iraq, said: “They used loudspeakers in the centre of the city to announce that men who didn’t help them fight US troops would be considered traitors, and their families too.” “So my two young sons went, afraid that something terrible could happen to us,” she added. “But they were killed by the Iraqi Army on the first day.” A dangerous issue Few statistics are available regarding just how many Iraqis have been forced to join the insurgency. The Interior Ministry puts the number in the “dozens.” Humanitarian agencies fear the problem is far larger, however, but few dare talk about it lest they themselves become targets. “One NGO intervened in the issue, and three of its volunteers were killed,” said a source at the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, preferring anonymity. “Later, the NGO was closed for security reasons.” According to the interior ministry’s Sergeant Hussein Obaidi, the governorates of Anbar in the west and Nineveh in the north had recorded the highest numbers of such cases, particularly the cities of Talafar, Ramadi and al-Qaim. Insurgents deny claims Members of the insurgency, however, consistently deny that they force non-combatants to participate in attacks. “We don’t force anyone to work with us,” a spokesman for the Muhammad Army, one of the largest militias inside Iraq, told IRIN. He went on to point out the difficulties associated with recruiting new fighters, mainly for security reasons. He added, however, that those who betrayed the group were occasionally killed. A spokesman for another local militia, who likewise preferred anonymity, admitted that it had forced people to fight with them against US-led forces, but denied killing them once their services were no longer required. Government action According to Obaidi, a number of recent offensives led by US and Iraqi government forces have turned up a handful of Iraqis found to be fighting with insurgents against their will. He noted that, in some cases, such reluctant fighters had proved useful sources of information about the militias. “We have to be careful when doing such investigations,” said Obaidi. “During battle, though, you can’t prevent these guys from getting killed because you can’t ask questions beforehand.” He added, “We urge families to make clear to us when their relatives are forced to join the insurgency so that we can help them.”