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Baath militiamen shoot at civilians in Basra By Michael Georgy BASRA, Iraq, April 6 (Reuters) - Pro-Saddam militiamen with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire on civilian vehicles in Basra on Sunday, wounding one man, in an attempt to force civilians to fight U.S. and British troops, witnesses said. The wounded man, Waleed Ja'awil, 18, was riding in the back of a pick up truck when Baath party militiamen dressed in civilian clothes shot at the farmer and his three cousins. The truck raced out of the city and stopped on the edge of Basra near a British military camp. Ja'awil...

For Bassem Ramadan, images of coalition tanks advancing through Iraqi cities do not evoke fear, hatred, or anger. “Freedom has its price,” said the Iraqi refugee, while watching footage of destruction on his television screen in Hayy al-Sellom. “Everyone in Iraq was waiting for this moment,” he said. “Not the Shiites, not the Kurds ­ everyone. Saddam’s regime was equally bloody on all of us, even on women and children,” he said. In light of the widespread anti-war sentiment in the Arab world, Ramadan’s stern-pro-war stance was surprising. Ramadan, and other Shiite refugees here dubbed the war a “blessing.” When...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Thousands of residents were fleeing Baghdad in a stream of bumper-to-bumper vehicles Friday after U.S. troops seized the city's Saddam International Airport. An Iraqi official promised an "unconventional" response and said he was referring to commando and suicide attacks. Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf claimed Iraqi forces had surrounded the U.S. troops at the airport after managing to isolate the unit from other units near the city. "Tonight we will do something unconventional, not by the military," al-Sahhaf said. We will do something which I believe is very beautiful. Those remaining soldiers who did not surrender...

WITH the boom of artillery fire ringing in their ears, thousands of terrified Baghdadis searched for safety yesterday as the reality of the coming battle began to sink in, perhaps for the first time. "This is it. This is the final battle. We have no way out. We are facing a reality now. We’re confronting the mightiest army in the world. What can we do? Where can we go? We’re at a loss," said Nour Khaled, 48, a mother of two. "We will definitely die. Who can escape such a war? My husband and I pray to God that if...

TERRIFIED civilians continued to stream out of burning Basra yesterday – risking death from the bullets of evil pro-Saddam fanatics. War-weary residents, faint with dehydration, faced a grim choice – stay and be forced to fight at gunpoint by Iraqi militia, or try to flee through the crossfire between the beseiged city's defenders and the British soldiers outside. Several thousand were pinned down in the middle of a shoot-out yesterday – triggered after Iraqi troops fired machine guns and artillery at the fleeing residents. Amid the fire, desperate mothers clutched screaming babies, young men protected their grandmothers and elderly men...

Potent swirls of incense smoke and festive bowls of pistachios do little to mask the sadness that hangs over the lives of 10 Iraqi refugees in a three-bedroom apartment in Coon Rapids. Four generations of the family live together — from the octogenarian grandmother with traditional tattoos on her hands and not a word of English to the little boys fighting over video games without a trace of an Arabic accent. In between is the father who weeps for his slain brother, the mother who sees ghosts, and three beautiful young women suspended between custom and curiosity. All these lives...

GULF WAR II: Brit support grows for conflict + Officer reveals brutality LT COL TIM COLLINS: Reveals his battle to lift Iraq's shadow of tyrannyTO THE RESCUE: US marine carries tot to safety after Iraqis fire on civiliansTO LOVING CARE: Forces doc cradles tot A SMILING teenage girl who waved at patrolling British soldiers and accepted a big-hearted squaddie's gift of chocolate was HANGED by agents of Saddam. The butchers of the dictator's corrupt Ba'ath party had spied on the Muslim youngster from an alleyway in Az Zubayr near Basra. Battle-hardened troops of the 1st Batallion, The Royal Irish Regiment...

Two 4,700-Pound Bombs Hit Baghdad Tower By DAVID CRARY .c The Associated Press The biggest bombs dropped on Baghdad so far - two 4,700-pound ``bunker busters'' - struck a communications tower Friday in an intense U.S. bombardment. Four U.S. Marines were missing after fierce fighting in Nasiriyah. U.S. and Iraqi forces traded tank and artillery fire throughout the day in Nasiriyah, a strategic southern city that has been the scene of some of the toughest fighting of the war. Several buildings, including a power plant, were ablaze. Nasiriyah, a city of about 500,000 on the Euphrates River near a junction...

Refugees hurry out of Basra. Many of the citizens fleeing the city were attacked by Iraqi mortars as they made their escape. THE crowd was halfway across the concrete and steel bridge when the mortar rounds started falling on the Basra side. Men, women and children screamed as they ran to escape Iraqi machine-gun fire. A thousand people, maybe more, ran for their lives. A young woman fell, hit by shrapnel as a pick-up truck broke cover and charged forward, the machine-gun mounted on its roof spewing bullets at the crowd. On the British side, a tank lurched forward,...

<p>The Al-Mamori family has been tied to the television ever since the war in Iraq began, flipping between BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera.</p> <p>Even with access to 35 Arabic language TV channels, not to mention American cable news shows, the most vivid images Jawad Al-Mamori sees of Iraq are not on the screen. They are in his mind.</p>

Iraqi refugee says world hasn't seen Saddam's cruelty Even with access to 35 Arabic language TV channels, not to mention American cable news shows, the most vivid images Jawad Al-Mamori sees of Iraq are not on the screen. They are in his mind. Pointing at the television images of American troops trudging toward Baghdad, the Iraqi refugee cannot contain his frustration that cameras can't show Saddam Hussein's grim tactics. ``They cannot see behind the picture,'' said Al-Mamori, 36, who now lives in Santa Clara. ``We were there.''

When Mazin Alkabbi awoke from an anesthesia-induced slumber on a morning in 1994, Iraqi authorities gave him grim news: He had been in a car accident and lost his ears. Alkabbi knew better. There had been no accident. His ears had been surgically removed because he fled the military when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991. Just hours before the surgery, he was arrested at his home in Basra. Alkabbi, who now lives in Arlington, remembered having his hands tied, being blindfolded and at one point even thinking he might just be questioned and released. His Iraqi identification...

Iraqis leave Basra, tank convoy destroyed By David Fox SOUTH OF BASRA, Iraq, March 27 (Reuters) - Thousands of tired and thirsty Iraqi civilians trudged out of Basra on Thursday, seeking water and shelter from air raids, as British forces shot up more Iraqi tanks leaving the city. Spokesman Captain Al Lockwood said British forces destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks and four armoured personnel carriers, foiling a fresh attempt by troops loyal to President Saddam Hussein to break out of the southern city, Iraq's second largest. "It was a very quick, short, sharp engagement. They were all destroyed," Lockwood said, adding...

Iraqis in Syria Speak Out Against Saddam By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer SAYDA ZEINAB, Syria - The small, bespectacled Iraqi housewife sat on the floor of a Shiite Muslim shrine just outside the Syrian capital Damascus, speaking in rushed, quiet tones of her hatred for her president, Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). AP Photo   "All he (Saddam) did was take the country from one war to the other. First Iran, then Kuwait and now this," Raziqa al-Hadi said. On hearing this, another Iraqi woman was emboldened to chime in: "I agree. I hope Saddam dies!" Then the...

Since the US-led war against Iraq started four days ago, the refugee influx that aid agencies were expecting has not materialised. But if the conflict drags on, Iraqi refugees could pour into neighbouring countries. Camps have been set up on Iraq's borders with Iran, Jordan and Syria. Until two days before the war started, many Iraqis did make it into Syria, while Jordan had already shut its borders, except for Iraqis with an onward destination. Starting on Tuesday, they were turned back on the Syrian border as well. Syrian officials said there was no reason to let in refugees as...

Fear takes hold on Iraq's desert road to Jordan By Edmund Blair RUWEISHED, Jordan, March 23 (Reuters) - The Iraqi driver was so scared travelling the desert road to Jordan after a night of heavy U.S. bombing on Baghdad that he regularly put his hands out of the window to dry his sweating palms. His passengers, who recounted their tale on Sunday, were South African "human shields" fleeing war in Iraq. They said they too were terrified on Saturday as they passed charred vehicles, burning buildings and a bombed fuel station on the highway to the Jordanian border. The only...

As soon as the television showed missiles falling over Iraq Wednesday night, Khalid Al-Baidhani jumped from his living room couch and charged up the stairs of his Portland apartment. "Becky, Becky, wake up!" he shouted to his wife. "It's happening!" The United States had opened attack on his home country, and Al-Baidhani couldn't have been happier. Like thousands of Iraqi refugees nationwide, Al-Baidhani wants to see Saddam Hussein ousted and Iraq adopt a true democracy. "God willing, the dark days will be gone soon," said Al-Baidhani, a machine operator who has family in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, located in...

Turkish officials see no sign of Iraq refugee wave SILOPI, Turkey, March 23 (Reuters) - Turkish officials said on Sunday they saw no signs of a Kurdish refugee wave from northern Iraq that could spark a Turkish military push into the region. The United States and its Kurdish allies firmly oppose any large Turkish incursion into northern Iraq. Turkey says it has the right to cross the border and that its aim would be to marshal refugees and prevent a humanitarian disaster. "Although the population movement in northern Iraq is increasing, we have not identified any migration towards our borders,"...

Anti-war protesters have no idea: refugee By Eamonn Duff March 23 2003 A Sydney Iraqi family has slammed ongoing Australian anti-war protests, saying demonstrators have no idea who or what they are campaigning for. Dhafir Al-Shammery escaped certain death under Saddam Hussein's regime in 1996. Today he is one of several hundred Iraqis living in Sydney who now know what the term freedom truly means. In an exclusive interview with The Sun-Herald, he said: "When I see thousands of Australians marching the streets on behalf of the Iraqi people, my heart sinks, because their view is not that of the...

AS an Iraqi Australian who is proud to be a citizen of this wonderful country, I salute you. My heart is with you and also with the people in my beloved Iraq. I am sure that none of you would wish to be involved in this war for light-hearted reasons. Neither would the Iraqi people, who have been suffering for 35 years under the most brutal regime in modern history. Iraqis are emotional, peace-loving people, generous and above all proud of their identity. I spent 32 years in Iraq before I was forced to flee. I love Iraq. I love...