- MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) --
The love affair between US troops and Iraqi children is turning sour. As
the invading troops pushed north toward Baghdad in the first weeks of the
war, it was always the children in every town that came out first to smile,
wave, give the thumbs up and shout the same greeting: 'Good, good, good!'
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- Happy to see a friendly face, the soldiers waved back
and many handed out candies from their field rations.
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- But a Reuters correspondent, who has traveled with US
troops since the start of the war, has seen more and more of the encounters
ending with some children, usually the older ones in their early teens,
hurling stones at the soldiers. It can be a Catch 22 situation for the
troops. If they let the children swarm around them, they expose themselves
to possible attack from adults who can use the cover to get close and throw
in a hand grenade.
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- But if they push them back, it hurts their efforts to
win over the civilian population, and can spark the stone throwing. "It's
frustrating. Theyâre like little gnats that you canât get away,"
said Capt. James McGahey, a company commander of the 101st Airborne Division
who says almost every one of the patrols he sends out in the northern city
of Mosul gets stoned.
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- "Everybody loves kids but it's impossible to love
300 of them when they all want to touch you, talk to you and grab you,
especially when there are a few out there who want to chuck stones."
In one typical incident this weekend, a group of soldiers on foot patrol
attracted an ever-increasing posse of children as they moved past a local
fire station and on through a rough neighborhood of Mosul.
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- By the time they reached a school building, at least
200 children and a small group of adults were around them, and the stones
came raining in from about a dozen of the older kids. "They were throwing
them like they were pitching a baseball," said Sgt. John McLean, who
was hit on the helmet, in the back and on the heel. The troops pulled away
and took up a defensive position but even then the children and adults
only dispersed when a warning shot was fired over their heads. "Everyone
tries to be as nice as we can with them but it does get difficult. They
definitely impede the job we're trying to do because you have to put half
your guys on keeping the children away."
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- The problem is not confined to Mosul. Crowds of 250-300
Iraqi teenagers hurled stones at US Marines patrolling the holy city of
Najaf in southern Iraq on Thursday and Friday, officers said. In Karbala
earlier this month, a group of children threw rocks and then kicked puppies
over a wall and into a compound where US troops were camped. When the soldiers
handed the puppies back with a warning, it was only a few minutes before
they were kicked back over the wall.
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- The problems arise once a crowd grows too large. When
troops walk through quieter neighborhoods, the mood is usually good and
some soldiers still take pictures of their buddies posing with young children.
When the crowds get bigger, army-hired interpreters ask adults to keep
the children at a distance for their own safety. If trouble starts, the
soldiers try to pull out of the area by truck and resume foot patrols once
the crowd disperses. And there is much less sharing of sweets or pencils
because it encourages more children to swarm in. ãWe call them seagulls
because if you give one seagull a piece of bread, the next minute youâll
have a whole flock of them,ä one soldier said.
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- US officers said a Marine opened fire on Friday at a
man he thought was stalking him with a handgun in Najaf, 140 km south of
Baghdad, which is regarded as sacred by Iraqâs majority Shiites.
"There's definitely still a risk, the threat is still there,"
said 1st Lt. Jack Bonnette from the Alpha 'Animal' Company of US Marines.
"It's like the generals say, we won the war, but the shooting's not
over, now we've got to win the peace," he told Reuters at one of the
Marine bases on the fringes of the town.
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- "There's still those individuals that don't want
us here, either they're fighting against America, or they're fighting for
the previous regime,ä he said. In the two weeks after US troops took
control of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, rival Shiite groups have been competing
for control of Najaf, a major pilgrimage site and center of learning for
Shiite Muslims from around the world.
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