Posted on 07/24/2003 3:16:07 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Neighbors say owner of home gave up Hussein's sonsSome call sheik 'traitor' after coalition forces learned about guests
07/24/2003
MOSUL, Iraq – Sheik Nawaf al-Zaydan Muhhamad is blamed by his neighbors for tipping off coalition forces that Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were staying with him and his family.
If true – and American officials won't say – Sheik Muhhamad, who is a cousin of Mr. Hussein's, will suddenly be $30 million richer. In any case, he's already become an outcast in his neighborhood.
The U.S. occupation administration had offered $15 million each for information leading to Mr. Hussein's wanted sons and $25 million for Mr. Hussein.
In retrospect, neighbors said, they became suspicious of the sheik when his wife and their four daughters left the house at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and never returned.
"There is a big question mark there, did they know something would happen, or was it a coincidence?" asked Ahmed Hazim, 37, who lives around the corner from Sheik Muhhamad's three-story villa on Shalalat Street. The massive pillars holding up the front facade stand charred and crumbling after Tuesday's shootout.
Three hours after the women left, U.S. troops walked up to the front door, knocked and asked all those inside to come out. Sheik Muhhamad and his only son, Shalan, left with their hands on their heads, neighbors said. Coalition forces took them away.
After that, U.S. troops called over loudspeakers at 10-minute intervals for anyone else to come out. "Surrender yourselves or face harsh military action," came the words in Arabic, Mr. Hazim said.
Those who had barricaded themselves inside responded with gunfire from the upper floors, witnesses and neighbors said.
"It began as gunfire and then it became a battle," said Nasser Hazim, Ahmed Hazim's brother. More troops arrived, until there were more than 200 around the house and in the area. Then the Kiowa helicopters came. "They mowed everything down," Nasser Hazim said.
Six hours after the operation began, the bodies of Uday, Qusay and two others were carried out.
And what of the man who harbored them? An American commander said the person who tipped off U.S. forces was in protective custody in Iraq. When asked why, Col. Joe Anderson, commander of the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, said: "People know who owns the house, so that's a factor."
He refused to say whether the tipster and the villa's owner were the same person.
While coalition officials would not say who tipped them off, neighbors said they were certain, and not happy.
"They [Uday and Qusay] are Iraqi people," said Waad Hamadi, 43, another neighbor. "We would not have told the Americans. Many people say he [Muhhamad] is the one, but there is no way he can come back here now. He is a traitor."
Sheik Muhhamad was always open about his ties to Mr. Hussein, neighbors said, and that had caused tension right along.
Sheik Muhhammad's ties to Mr. Hussein cut two ways – making him rich, but causing him personal grief.
Mr. Hussein threw Sheik Muhhamad's elder brother in jail, reportedly over a tribal disagreement, but released him 18 months into a 17-year sentence.
Nasser Hazim said he drove his orange and white cab past Sheik Muhhamad's house at least four times a day over the last few weeks. He said he didn't suspect anything untoward. No fancy cars parked outside or luxury goods being carried in.
Uday liked flashy cars, alcohol and women. And that was perhaps the most perplexing thing for most of Sheik Muhhamad's neighbors, who still can't believe the brothers sought refuge there.
"Can you believe that Uday – Uday," he stressed, "would go from living in a palace to living in a house like that?" asked Mohammed Abdullah, a neighbor. "I still can't believe we were neighbors!"
Sheik Muhhamad's family used to sit outside on hot nights, but they rarely had visitors. Neighbors did not see anything unusual, no surprising comings or goings, nor overly heavy security. Sheik Muhhamad had moved to Mosul from Tikrit, Mr. Hussein's hometown, Ahmed Hazim said, so the family did not know many of their neighbors.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/world/stories/072403dnintinformer.11c70.html
Traitor, blamed ? I suspect AP bias. Or maybe not ?
It's OK. He can afford to move.
I guess since AP has bought into this culture for the moment, but, being culturally sensitive as they are, they overlook the possibility that it's the GIRLS who tipped off the Americans.
4 Daughters -- weren't little girls Uday's favorite targets of rape and abuse? Has it occurred to the AP that this might be the girls getting a little revenge on that monster? Are we to believe that Uday gave up his "divine right to secure bed partners for himself" just because he became a fugitive?
I can see this mom hating the very sight of him in her house with her vulnerable daughters slated as his after-dinner delicasies.
Interesting theory. I think it's the wife, as she would be the one who would be able to gather up herself and daughters and get them out with no questions or fuss.
In an Islamic culture, even a fairly liberalized one like Iraq, the woman has few rights. It would be extremely tempting for the wife to be able to leave her husband, and get set up in a witness protection program in the US with a $30M nest egg
For Uday and Qusay to be there, they must have trusted the husband, but being Muslims it would not have occurred to them to think about whether the wife or daughters had a motive to inform on them
It'd make great copy in the local newspaper, and what a message to send via Al Jazeera.
yeah, like safety for the wife and 4 girls...good points... :)
Please don't take fiercely scowling and violently staring Arabs shouting about treason and the bounden duty of hospitality on the face value. It's a bullshit Arab machism.
If anything, they're good merchants, so they offer to the gullible Western journos what they believe the latter expect. And treason is in their blood, thus, given a chance, anyone of ah so emotional sheikh's neighbours would sell the brothers with their hats, shoes and ofal... for much less than $ 30 million at that.
Go ahead folks, call me a bigot. I just cannot fathom how pervasive stupidity is among Middle Eastern/Southwest Asian men (and women for that matter).
But I'm more concerned with stupidity. The quoted idiot would rather be "loyal" to the brutal thugs (who destroyed his country and wouldn't think twice about raping his daughter or shooting him in the head) than "betray" an Iraqi citizen.
Could you imagine if I ran around ranting at the truck driver who tipped off police about the D.C. snipers that he had betrayed fellow Americans?
Thanks for the link. I bumped that article to check out later.
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