-Caveat Lector- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,922066,00.html Iraqi exiles put patriotism first as they return home to fight invaders
Jonathan Steele in Saida Zeinab, Syria Wednesday March 26, 2003 The Guardian Young Iraqi exiles are rushing home to defend their country in growing numbers, even though many strongly oppose Saddam Hussein's regime. A fatwa issued by the highest religious leaders of Shia Islam, calling on Iraqis to "fight the aggressors and stand against the invasion", will accelerate an already strong trend for young Iraqi exiles to go home to defend their country. Nowhere is this more visible than in the warren of narrow streets in Saida Zeinab, a heavily Iraqi Shia neighbourhood of the Syrian capital. "I'm against Saddam but I'm not for America," said a young man yesterday behind a shop counter full of music CDs and cassette tapes of speeches and lectures by Shia scholars. Until two months ago Abdullah, 25, (who did not want to give his real name) was a student of engineering from Kerbala, a town south of Baghdad which contains one of Shia Islam's holiest mosques. The tapes he can sell openly in Syria are banned in Iraq, where Abdullah passed them out clandestinely to friends until he felt the risk of being jailed was getting too great. Now he is planning to go home. The patriotic drive to defend his country has overcome his hatred of Saddam's regime, he said, though there are other factors too - peer group pressure and anxiety about his parents' well- being. "Many of my friends have gone back already in the last few days," he said. "Even if I just dig a trench by our house and sit in it with a gun, I might kill one of the invaders. They're coming down in parachutes so you might hit one." Round the corner Mohammed Ali Musa, 23, serves tea in a small room dominated by a television set on a high shelf. The customers, mainly middle-aged men, sit in gloomy silence as al-Jazeera beams the latest news of the war. The normal morning chatter has been replaced by pensive sipping and the rattle of worry beads. "I'm planning to go back in three days' time," says Mohammed, another Iraqi Shia who left his wife and parents in Nassiriya two months ago in the hope of earning a better wage in Syria. "I want to cut the Americans' throats and throw them to the dogs," he adds. "If I'd known it would have been like this, I would never have left Iraq. I just pray to God I can go back and make a contribution." In spite of the young men's eagerness to go home, there is an obstacle. A US missile struck a bus carrying 37 Syrian workers coming home from Iraq on Sunday, killing five and wounding 10. Now few drivers want to take the risk of travelling the route. Close to a hundred thousand marchers brought central Damascus to a standstill yesterday as the anti-war sentiment in the nation grew. Young Iraqi men in Jordan, which like Syria hosts several hundred thousand exiles, have also been flooding back home since the war started. Jordanian records show that 5,284 Iraqis have crossed the desert border overland into Iraq since March 16. Iraq's consular office in Amman issued at least 3,000 temporary passports for exiled Iraqis in the war's first three days. The level of resistance from Shia Muslims in particular has been one of the biggest shocks for US and British forces. They predominate in southern Iraq and have a long history of being repressed by Saddam Hussein's regime. They were expected to be natural allies. "People remember the coalition's position at the end of the first Gulf war in 1991 when they left the field and gave a green light to Saddam to destroy our uprising. They still don't trust the Americans," said Bayan Jabor, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the opposition groups with which the United States deals. While middle-aged Iraqi opposition politicians comfort themselves with an image of a cautiously neutral population, the mood of the younger generation gives a different signal. What moves them is not the past but today's graphic news bulletins of bombs and invaders in foreign colours. Thousands are taking sides. They are opting for patriotism, however much they hate Saddam . Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. 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