There have been complaints by Muslim leaders that Osama bin Laden's corpse has not been treated respectfully. It was buried at sea, and U.S. officials said every effort has been made to ensure adherence to Muslim traditions.
Perhaps it might be instructive to elaborate on how Muslims treat the remains of Americans. The following story was published in a Glasgow newspaper on April 1, 2004.
The article is a bit untidy, and no attempt has been made to correct errors or other information which appears misplaced. There are some descriptions of gory photos which were not provided.
But it should impress the reader with the barbarity and crude disrespect shown the remains of several Americans killed by radical mobs in the Iraqi city of Falluja in 2004.
Byline: By Rod Prince / Glasgow Daily Record / April 1, 2004
THE charred bodies of four civilian contractors three Americans were paraded through the streets of an Iraqi city after a terror attack terror attack n → atentado (terrorista)
terror attack n → attentato terroristico yesterday.
The baying mob including children then hung two of the bodies from a bridge over the Euphrates River.
Limbs were pulled from at least two of the dead and hung from a telephone cable in scenes of sheer barbarity.
Pictures of the obscene attack many too horrific to be shown in the Daily Record were flashed across the world and are sure to deeply shock the US public.
They showed one man beating a charred corpse with a metal pole.Others tied a yellow rope to a body,hooked it to a car and dragged it down the main street.
One of the dead was a woman. And five American soldiers died in a roadside bombing on one of the bloodiest days so far this year for the coalition governing Iraq.
The enormity of the attacks on the contractors was bad enough but the jubilant way that the crowd of Iraqis displayed their bodies through the streets was even worse.
The crowd's blood--lust exposes the depth of anti-American bitterness among Iraqi hardliners and the scale of the challenge facing coalition commanders charged with restoring calm to the region.
The four contractors were killed in a rebel attack on their 4x4 vehicles in Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad.
The city has been the scene of some of the worst violence on both sides of the conflict since the beginning of the American occupation a year ago.
Witness Abdul Aziz Mohammed said Both the name Mohammed and the name Said can be romanized in several ways. This page attempts to link all articles about people with this name, irrespective of spelling variants:
- Mohamad Said
Beneath the bodies, a man held a printed sign with a skull and crossbones skull and crossbones
alerts consumers to presence of poison; represents death. [Folklore: Misc.]
See : Danger
skull and crossbones
symbolizing mortality; sign on poison bottles. and the phrase, 'Falluja is the cemetery for Americans'.
One resident displayed what appeared to bedog tags taken from one body.Others said there were weapons in the targeted cars.
TV pictures showed one US passport near a body and a US Defence Department ID card. US contractors in Iraq have been hiring former US and British special forces soldiers as bodyguards with contracts worth up to pounds 5000 a week.
Witnesses said the two vehicles were attacked with small arms small arms, firearms designed primarily to be carried and fired by one person and, generally, held in the hands, as distinguished from heavy arms, or artillery.
Falluja is in the so-called Sunni Triangle The Sunni Triangle refers to a densely-populated region of Iraq to the northwest of Baghdad that is inhabited mostly by Sunni Muslim Arabs. The roughly triangular area's corners are usually said to lie near Baghdad (on the east side of the triangle), Ramadi (on the west side) and , where support for Saddam Hussein was strong and rebels often carry out attacks against American forces.
In yesterday's other attack at Malahma, 12miles to the north-west of Falluja,five US troops died when their military vehicle ran over abomb.
Defence officials said the soldiers were from the Army's 1st Infantry Division The latest violence came two days after Carina Carina (kərē`nə) [Lat.,=the keel], southern constellation, representing the keel of the ancient constellation Argo Navis, or Ship of the Argonauts. Carina contains Canopus, the second brightest star in the sky. Perelli, the head of a UN electoral team, said better security is vital if Iraq wants to hold elections by a deadline of January 31, 2005. They are scheduled to follow a June 30 transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government.
The grim and shocking scenes in Falluja represent President George Bush's worst nightmare the reality ofthe fall-out from the Iraq war brought home in all its gory go·ry
adj. go·ri·er, go·ri·est
1. Covered or stained with gore; bloody.
2. Full of or characterized by bloodshed and violence. horror.
The images of corpses being mutilated are certain to appal an American electorate increasingly disillusioned by the Bush administration's attitude to the war.
Jeremy Binnie,Middle East Editor of Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment, said the grisly images would sent shockwaves around America.
He said: 'It is such a savage attack. The mob are holding these contractors up as an example of what awaits other foreigner in Iraq.
'This would have been a spontaneous reaction by the crowd, rather than something premeditated everyone wanted to take part.
'There would have been a whole queue of people wanting to get to these bodies. Most people understand the situation across Iraq is not ideal but whether they are prepared for these pictures, I'm not sure.
'It reminds me of the famous photograph of an American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in Somalia, which pretty much led to the withdrawal of US troops there in 1993.
'These photographs are definitely unhelpful to the Bush administration.'
One youngster, Mohammad Nafik, 12, said as he watched the scenes of desecration: 'I am happy to see this. The Americans are occupying us so this is what will happen.This is the fate of all who come to Falluja.'
Yet, despite the continuing violence, President Bush yesterday vowed troops would remain there.
He said: 'We mourn the loss of life. But there is an important effort to provide the Iraqi people freedom and democracy and we will not turn back from that effort.'
CAPTION(S):
PRICEY: At the pumps; CHILLING: Top, the boy's sign reads `Falluja is the cemetery of the Americans'; BARBARIC: Anti-US slogans are chanted as bodies hang, left. Above, playing inside the shell; SICKENING SCENES: Iraqis celebrate the deaths of four civilians after gunmen opened fire on two vehicles in the flashpoint city of Falluja yesterday
COPYRIGHT 2004 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday
No comments:
Post a Comment