Iraq: Locals report being forced into insurgency

Just another indication that the end for the insurgency is nigh.

BAGHDAD, 23 November (IRIN) - Mahmoud Kaduri, 29, recalled bitterly how he was forced to work with the insurgency currently fighting US and Iraqi government troops. "They told me to work with them or my son would be killed," he recalled.

"I had no option, I had to save my child," he added.

After sending his son to neigbouring Jordan for safety, he told his tormentors that he would no longer work with them.

"They wanted me to attack a police car with a mortar," he recounted. "But when I saw there were children nearby, I refused."

They responded by shooting him in the stomach.

"It was my lucky day," Kaduri recalled, from his hospital bed in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. "I would have been shot in the head, but was saved by people from the neighbourhood who came to my aid."

Kaduri is one of dozens of Iraqis who have reportedly been forced to help insurgents against the US-led occupation in exchange for the lives of loved ones, according to officials at the Ministry of Interior.

Ministry officials say few people survive working for insurgents, and are usually killed once they had finished the desired work.

"Some are paid for it, but others are forced to do it," said Hussein Kamal, Iraq's deputy Interior Minister.

Doesn't really square up with this does it....“The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow—and they will win.” - Michael Moore, 4/14/2004