'We shoot them down like the morons they are': US general

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'We shoot them down like the morons they are': US general
By Lindsay Murdoch Herald Correspondent south of Baghdad
April 9 2003, 11:05 AM

Hundreds of Muslim fighters, many of them non-Iraqis, were putting up a stronger fight for Baghdad than Iraq's Republican Guard or the regular army, a top United States military officer said yesterday.

"They stand, they fight, sometimes they run when we engage them," Brigadier-General John Kelly said.

"But often they run into our machine guns and we shoot them down like the morons they are."

General Kelly, assistant commander of the about 20,000-strong 1st Marine Division, said US intelligence indicated that there might be anywhere between 500 and 5000 of the fighters, whom he described as terrorists.

"They appear willing to die. We are trying our best to help them out in that endeavour," he said.

General Kelly said a captured Syrian fighter who had his leg blown off had refused medical help. "They are arrogant. They are determined," he said.

The fighters were armed with AK47 rifles and hand-held rockets, he said.

"We are finding them more dangerous than the conventional Iraqi units."

General Kelly said pockets of the Republican Guard and Iraq's regular army were engaging thousands of US marines who had entered Baghdad from the north-east after seizing control of bridges across the Tigris River.

The resistance was unco-ordinated, he said.

Well, he's telling it like it is. These peole would have to be morons for wasting their life in such futile attempts.

The scary thing is that these people apparently know and understand that they are going to die if they engage, but still do so happily.

It is one thing to engage an enemy that thinks like you: you want to beat the enemy, but you want to go home. It is much more dangerous to take on an enemy that knows he is going to die and is willing to take as many of you with him as he can.

When you are faced with that kind of opposition, you have few choices.... Taking prisoners or taking the enemy alive is few and far between in terms of options.