Stone-Throwing Children Put U.S. Troops on Edge
26.04.2003 [22:47]
The love affair between U.S. troops and Iraqi children is turning sour.
As the invading troops pushed north toward 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 traveled 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 neighborhood 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.
The problems arise once a crowd grows too large. When troops walk through quieter neighborhoods, the mood is usually good and some soldiers still take pictures of their buddies posing with young children.
When the crowds get bigger, army-hired interpreters ask adults to keep the children at a distance for their own safety. If trouble starts, the soldiers try to pull out of the area by truck and resume foot patrols once the crowd disperses.
And there is much less sharing of sweets or pencils because it encourages more children to swarm in.
"We call them seagulls because if you give one seagull a piece of bread, the next minute you'll have a whole flock of them," one soldier said.
Kieran Murray/Reuters
www1.iraqwar.ru
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Iraqi Crowds Pelt U.S. Troops with Rocks in Holy City
26.04.2003 [22:52]
U.S. troops trying to maintain order in Iraq's holy city of Najaf have been pelted with
rocks by crowds of teenagers but most residents have given them a friendly reception, U.S. officers said on Saturday.
They said a Marine opened fire on Friday at a man he thought was stalking him with a handgun in the town 90 miles south of Baghdad, which is regarded as sacred by Iraq's majority Shi'ites.
"There's definitely still a risk, the threat is still there," said 1st Lieutenant Jack Bonnette from the Alpha "Animal" Company of U.S. Marines.
"It's like the generals say, we won the war, but the shooting's not over, now we've got to win the peace," he told Reuters at one of the Marine bases on the fringes of the town.
"There's still those individuals that don't want us here, either they're fighting against America, or they're fighting for the previous regime," he said.
In the two weeks after U.S. troops took control of the Iraqi capital, Baghad, rival Shi'ite groups have been competing for control of Najaf, a major pilgrimage site and center of learning for Shi'ite Muslims from around the world.
The southern city is the site of the tomb of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad and considered the first Shi'ite leader.
One Shi'ite group said on Friday that Shi'ite clerics were running Najaf without regard to U.S. forces.
Marines say they are in consultations with a retired Iraqi army colonel who has been appointed mayor and is presiding over a council of elders, including Shi'ite clerics.
TEENS STONE SOLDIERS
Groups of 250 to 300 teenagers hurled stones at Marines on patrol in the city streets in two separate incidents on Thursday and Friday, officers said.
There were no reports of injuries and the exact trigger for the stone-throwing was unclear.
Marines said their translators had told them one of the crowds had mistaken them for British troops, against whom they have grievances dating to colonial times -- a sobering lesson for the Americans about how long memories are in Iraq.
But the Marines say they have generally received a warm welcome since they arrived in Najaf on Wednesday to take control from U.S. Army units, describing the rock throwers as unrepresentative of the majority in the town of 200,000.
"It's not the general populace, it's a few derelicts that think that the war's still on and don't realize we're here to help them," Captain Douglas Schaffer, commanding officer of Alpha Company, of 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, told Reuters.
Officers said a Marine on patrol on Friday night fired a shot with his M-16 rifle at a man who crept toward him from an alley and pulled a handgun from his pocket. The shot missed and the man fled.
Marines detained two Iraqi men who were walking alongside the gunman, one of whom was carrying a military bayonet.
"This may be an isolated incident, they may be common criminals," Bonnette said. The recovered handgun was an Iraqi variant of a Beretta with eight 9mm rounds in its magazine.
During a patrol witnessed by Reuters on Friday, residents crowded around a group of Marines walking through sandy streets to ask when services like electricity would be restored, but there were no overt signs of hostility.
In the northern city of Mosul, U.S. officers said it was common for crowds of children and teenagers to follow patrols through the streets, but that members of the crowds were increasingly inclined to throw stones at the soldiers.
Matthew Green/Reuters
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