http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4023021.stm Of course they were fighting for the "rebels." Which eads to this qeustion. We keep hearing that the "insurgents" are fighting to expel alien invaders from tehir home. Since when is Fallugah part of France?
The best estimates I've seen, from Iraqi sources, seem to feel that it's roughly 70-30 foreigners (Saudis, Syrians, Iranians, Palestinians etc.) and ex-Baathist thugs. The thing is that some Iraqi Sunnis, who stand to lose the most in a democratic Iraq, threw in with these nutjobs only to discover that Wahhabi Islam isn't anything they're remotely able to deal with. Veiling, religious police, no music no drinking and all that isn't the way it ever was and they don't seem to like it. Good piece from the other day, well worth reading: As US troops sweep through the houses, they are unearthing the insurgents’ horrifying secrets — more akin to the handiwork of serial killers than guerrillas or even terrorists — that have shocked the world and explain why this offensive has met with so little opposition from the Arab world... ...US and Iraqi troops have discovered kidnappers’ lairs filled with corpses or emaciated prisoners half-mad with fear, and piles of bodies of men who had refused to fight with the insurgents. As the guerrillas run their last sprint from death, sympathy for their cause is running out among Iraqis. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1359053,00.html