thedrifter
10-05-05, 12:02 PM
A delicate mission -- busting into mosque
- Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Sada, Iraq -- Moving almost soundlessly, the Marines sprinted up to the sandstone wall surrounding the flat, yellow mosque, then hunkered down -- backs against the wall, their heads turned to look over it, M-16s at the ready.
An Iraqi flag flew from the metal minaret. Two empty, haphazardly nailed coffins lay on a weedy, dusty lawn. Everything inside the compound was quiet.
But such tranquility can be deceptive, said Marines conducting house-to-house searches as part of Operation Iron Fist, a military assault aimed at ridding western Iraqi towns near the Syrian border of armed insurgents before the Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein constitution.
For weeks, insurgents had been lobbing mortars and rockets at Marine patrols outside Sada from the vicinity of another mosque, dubbed the "Blue Mosque" by the Marines for its turquoise onion dome. A leaflet glued to its gate warned local residents that the referendum soon to be voted on was "un-Islamic."
The leaflet was adorned with the distinctive symbol used by al Qaeda in Iraq, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: an open Quran superimposed over a gray globe, a fist with an extended index finger, an AK-47, a black flag rising from the book and Arabic lettering spelling out "Monotheism and Jihad."
But when their search for insurgents and ammunition brought them to the mosque in Sada on Saturday afternoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment faced a quandary: how to rid a town of insurgents while showing respect for the local culture and religion -- and avoid alienating a population that has become unhappy with the U.S. occupation.
"The insurgents know that we are going to be very cautious about entering a mosque, so sometimes they would use it to their advantage, use them as storage points for ammunition, as meeting places. Sometimes they'd fire at U.S. and coalition forces from a mosque," said Maj. Toby Patterson, 35, from Oklahoma, the executive officer of the 3rd Battalion.
For several minutes, the Marines stood outside the mosque compound, silent. Rambo, the Marines' bomb-sniffing German shepherd, panted in the 95-degree heat.
"Let's go!" one of the men finally yelled, and the Marines ran up the steps and gathered on either side of the metal door. Sgt. Neil Fucci, 21, a Marine engineer from Barstow (San Bernardino County), led Rambo to the locked door and let him sniff around it to make sure it was not booby-trapped. Another Marine knocked on the door loudly.
No one answered.
A Marine pulled out a shotgun and held the muzzle just left of the keyhole. As some of the Marines put their fingers in their ears, a single shot rang out, the door swung open and the Americans poured in. "Don't step on the prayer rugs!" a Marine yelled.
The men pointed their guns at the plain white ceiling, at posters spelling out instructions for a proper Muslim burial, at calendars with pictures of the Prophet Muhammad's shrine in Mecca, at bookshelves laden with brochures in Arabic advising against smoking. An open Quran lay on a low stool in the corner. Fucci led Rambo along the walls, instructing the dog to sniff behind the radiators, and walked him up the curving metal stairs to the platform the muezzin uses during his call to prayer.
The Marines found no ammunition in the mosque. When they left, they carefully closed the broken door behind them.
But the damage may have been done, some feared.
"I can't stop you from showing a dog in a mosque, because we did it, but it would set (the operation) back," a Marine interpreter said to this reporter. The interpreter keeps his identity secret because he fears retaliation from Iraqi insurgents. "It's bad enough to have boots in the mosque, let alone dogs. A dog is an unclean animal in Islam."
The Lima Company commander, Capt. Richard Pitchford, 35, from Virginia, also was concerned.
"What do you think about dogs in the mosque?" he asked this reporter the next day. "How bad do you think it was?"
Patterson said he had not known that the Muslim religion forbids bringing dogs into a mosque. He said the Marines had to get special permission from the 2nd Regimental Combat Team commanders based in al-Asad, a former Iraqi airbase about 90 miles east of Sada, in order to enter a mosque.
"I don't remember them telling us not to use dogs," he said. "We definitely don't want to do something where we're going to insult the Iraqi people."
Breaking into a mosque with bomb-sniffing dogs is just one in a list of actions Iraqis may find offensive. During Operation Iron Fist, Marines fired 120mm rounds from a tank through a building in Karabila with civilians inside, severely injuring at least five people, including a baby girl; commandeered houses to use as headquarters for hours at a time; and blew up civilian houses they found suspicious.
On Sunday, Fucci took a black, embroidered woman's dress from a shed next to a house in Karabila that he and Rambo had inspected for explosives.
"We're going to use this man-dress to train dogs, for aggression training," Fucci said. A Marine would put on the dress over protective clothing and pretend to be an insurgent, he said, and Fucci would urge Rambo to attack him.
Cpl. Anthony Hill, from Oklahoma, pointed out that it was a woman's dress.
"Man-dress, woman-dress, what's the difference," Fucci said. He folded the dress and stuffed it in the corner of the armored bus called Cougar that Marine engineers use.
Patterson called such behavior "unacceptable."
"The only thing they should take from any house is some type of ... weapons. They definitely shouldn't be taking personal belongings," Patterson said. "If we do something and it's viewed as just being careless by the locals, that would damage our relationship with them."
E-mail Anna Badkhen at abadkhen@sfchronicle.com.
Ellie
- Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Sada, Iraq -- Moving almost soundlessly, the Marines sprinted up to the sandstone wall surrounding the flat, yellow mosque, then hunkered down -- backs against the wall, their heads turned to look over it, M-16s at the ready.
An Iraqi flag flew from the metal minaret. Two empty, haphazardly nailed coffins lay on a weedy, dusty lawn. Everything inside the compound was quiet.
But such tranquility can be deceptive, said Marines conducting house-to-house searches as part of Operation Iron Fist, a military assault aimed at ridding western Iraqi towns near the Syrian border of armed insurgents before the Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein constitution.
For weeks, insurgents had been lobbing mortars and rockets at Marine patrols outside Sada from the vicinity of another mosque, dubbed the "Blue Mosque" by the Marines for its turquoise onion dome. A leaflet glued to its gate warned local residents that the referendum soon to be voted on was "un-Islamic."
The leaflet was adorned with the distinctive symbol used by al Qaeda in Iraq, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: an open Quran superimposed over a gray globe, a fist with an extended index finger, an AK-47, a black flag rising from the book and Arabic lettering spelling out "Monotheism and Jihad."
But when their search for insurgents and ammunition brought them to the mosque in Sada on Saturday afternoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment faced a quandary: how to rid a town of insurgents while showing respect for the local culture and religion -- and avoid alienating a population that has become unhappy with the U.S. occupation.
"The insurgents know that we are going to be very cautious about entering a mosque, so sometimes they would use it to their advantage, use them as storage points for ammunition, as meeting places. Sometimes they'd fire at U.S. and coalition forces from a mosque," said Maj. Toby Patterson, 35, from Oklahoma, the executive officer of the 3rd Battalion.
For several minutes, the Marines stood outside the mosque compound, silent. Rambo, the Marines' bomb-sniffing German shepherd, panted in the 95-degree heat.
"Let's go!" one of the men finally yelled, and the Marines ran up the steps and gathered on either side of the metal door. Sgt. Neil Fucci, 21, a Marine engineer from Barstow (San Bernardino County), led Rambo to the locked door and let him sniff around it to make sure it was not booby-trapped. Another Marine knocked on the door loudly.
No one answered.
A Marine pulled out a shotgun and held the muzzle just left of the keyhole. As some of the Marines put their fingers in their ears, a single shot rang out, the door swung open and the Americans poured in. "Don't step on the prayer rugs!" a Marine yelled.
The men pointed their guns at the plain white ceiling, at posters spelling out instructions for a proper Muslim burial, at calendars with pictures of the Prophet Muhammad's shrine in Mecca, at bookshelves laden with brochures in Arabic advising against smoking. An open Quran lay on a low stool in the corner. Fucci led Rambo along the walls, instructing the dog to sniff behind the radiators, and walked him up the curving metal stairs to the platform the muezzin uses during his call to prayer.
The Marines found no ammunition in the mosque. When they left, they carefully closed the broken door behind them.
But the damage may have been done, some feared.
"I can't stop you from showing a dog in a mosque, because we did it, but it would set (the operation) back," a Marine interpreter said to this reporter. The interpreter keeps his identity secret because he fears retaliation from Iraqi insurgents. "It's bad enough to have boots in the mosque, let alone dogs. A dog is an unclean animal in Islam."
The Lima Company commander, Capt. Richard Pitchford, 35, from Virginia, also was concerned.
"What do you think about dogs in the mosque?" he asked this reporter the next day. "How bad do you think it was?"
Patterson said he had not known that the Muslim religion forbids bringing dogs into a mosque. He said the Marines had to get special permission from the 2nd Regimental Combat Team commanders based in al-Asad, a former Iraqi airbase about 90 miles east of Sada, in order to enter a mosque.
"I don't remember them telling us not to use dogs," he said. "We definitely don't want to do something where we're going to insult the Iraqi people."
Breaking into a mosque with bomb-sniffing dogs is just one in a list of actions Iraqis may find offensive. During Operation Iron Fist, Marines fired 120mm rounds from a tank through a building in Karabila with civilians inside, severely injuring at least five people, including a baby girl; commandeered houses to use as headquarters for hours at a time; and blew up civilian houses they found suspicious.
On Sunday, Fucci took a black, embroidered woman's dress from a shed next to a house in Karabila that he and Rambo had inspected for explosives.
"We're going to use this man-dress to train dogs, for aggression training," Fucci said. A Marine would put on the dress over protective clothing and pretend to be an insurgent, he said, and Fucci would urge Rambo to attack him.
Cpl. Anthony Hill, from Oklahoma, pointed out that it was a woman's dress.
"Man-dress, woman-dress, what's the difference," Fucci said. He folded the dress and stuffed it in the corner of the armored bus called Cougar that Marine engineers use.
Patterson called such behavior "unacceptable."
"The only thing they should take from any house is some type of ... weapons. They definitely shouldn't be taking personal belongings," Patterson said. "If we do something and it's viewed as just being careless by the locals, that would damage our relationship with them."
E-mail Anna Badkhen at abadkhen@sfchronicle.com.
Ellie