US Troops Seek Cooperation From Ramadi Locals

Agence France Presse, Arab News

RAMADI, Iraq, 28 November 2004 —



US soldiers are trying to convince the population of the city of Ramadi, in western Iraq, to cooperate in their hunt for resistance fighters, but stumble on the residents’ fear of bloody retaliation.

“Going into people’s houses at two or three in the morning isn’t exactly the best way to be popular, so behave correctly with them, there’s no need to have everybody’s hands up,” says the 503rd Infantry Regiment’s Lt. Tad Tsuneyoshi.

The troops cautiously venture into the streets of this Sunni city in the moonlight, with only the barking of stray dogs breaking the eerie silence shrouding this city of 400,000 souls.

The GIs progress through the streets house after house, street after street.

The procedure never varies: Knock on the gate, enter the premises, gather the men old enough to be fighters and carry out gunpowder tests on their hands and face.

The soldiers try to perform their sweep as smoothly as possible. No kicking down doors or shouting at the residents.

More than the hope to net resistance fighters, Tsuneyoshi’s aim when he encounters local families is to enlist their assistance. “We can’t make progress without the help of the local population,” he explains.

For each visit, his arguments are the same. But so are the reactions of the families, whose priority remains security.

One father has stopped sending his children to school because of the violence which rages outside, while another fears he might just get caught in a firefight on his way to the market.

“If there's criminals around, then call this number and we will take care of them,” the 23-year-old lieutenant tells Munther Faraj, a father of 11, as he hands him a pen with a phone number marked on it.

One of his sons, Ahmed, admits that “everybody is afraid to cooperate, because we risk being killed by the mujahedin afterwards, nothing can be kept secret in this town.”

Being perceived as a collaborator is close to a death sentence, something the Iraqi contractor working as a translator for the American unit is well aware of, even though he is from a different part of the country. His face is masked by a balaklava every time he leaves the base.

The US military also has to delve into the intricacies of the region’s tribal structure to work with sheikhs who are deemed trustworthy and influential enough to make a difference in the local population’s behavior.

This patrol only yields one tenuous piece of information. A resident claims that a local sheikh has been delivering sermons against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.

Meanwhile, troops are engaged in a game of cat and mouse with resistance fighters scattered all over the sprawling city. It is not always clear who is the cat and who is the mouse.

US troops seem to emerge from the night of hunting with a slight advantage, having netted two men in possession of light weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

But around 8:00 am, as the operation winds down, a suspected resistance fighter who has escaped the Marines’ attention sprays automatic gunfire on a small unit of soldiers penetrating a courtyard.

One GI collapses, a bullet in his side. Officers on the base later diagnosed his wounds as non-life threatening.

“They are getting smarter all the time, even if they have limited firepower, they make the best of it,” one US sergeant comments on the resistance the Iraqis are offering in Ramadi.


US Troops Seek Cooperation From Ramadi Locals