On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 18:59:42 +0500, uvj at vsnl.com said:
> THE TIMES OF INDIA
>
> WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2003
>
> Iraqi donkeys turning terrorists?
>
> REUTERS
>
> BAGHDAD: Since guerrillas used donkeys to outwit the high-tech defences
> of
> the US military in Iraq, the life of the beast of burden has never been
> so
> miserable.
>
> Attackers used donkey carts to launch Katyusha rockets at the Oil
> Ministry
> and two fortified Baghdad hotels on Friday. Two other donkey carts were
> stopped -- one carrying more rockets, the other a donkey-bomb wired up
> with
> explosives.
>
> Every donkey in Baghdad is suddenly under suspicion as US President
> George W
> Bush wages a global war on terror.
>
> In a crackdown on an animal that already suffers multiple daily
> whippings,
> US soldiers with automatic rifles regularly stop and search donkey carts
> for
> weapons.
>
> Donkey owners say petrol stations have been refusing to sell them
> kerosene
> for resale since the rocket attacks. The animals salivate and wheeze with
> exhaustion as they pull their owners and heavy loads across the potholed
> streets of the Iraqi capital in a desperate search for kerosene.
>
> "I have five daughters to feed. I used to make 7,000 dinars ($3.50) a
> day.
> Now I earn only 2,000 since the Americans started pressuring us after the
> rocket attacks," said Jabar Mahdi.
>
> "We ask the petrol station managers for kerosene and they refuse. What
> did
> we do to get treated like this?"
>
> Even before the rocket attacks, donkey cart drivers were some of the
> least
> respected people in Iraq, living on the fringes of society in teeming
> slums.
>
> Some fear Iraqis will now look down on them even more as they navigate
> their
> battered, bloodstained donkeys through chaotic traffic.
>
> "When they see us ride by they call us terrorists. They accuse us of
> being
> Saddam's guerrillas and causing all of the security problems in Iraq,"
> said
> Hikmat Sabeeh, 30.
>
> "We had nothing to do with the rocket attacks."
>
> The attacks could not have come at a worse time for donkey cart owners,
> who
> can barely afford to buy newspapers to read about the rockets and bombs
> that
> have shaken Baghdad.
>
> US troops are pounding the country in major operations designed to root
> out
> guerrillas who have killed 185 of their comrades since Washington
> declared
> major combat over on May 1.
>
> They are not taking any chances so donkey owners fear getting caught up
> in a
> security crisis in postwar Iraq.
>
> Ali Kathim woke up two days after the rocket attacks to find his donkey
> was
> missing.
>
> "My friends said they saw the Americans take my donkey away," he said. "I
> have not been able to work for four days. I just sit around. I don't know
> if
> I will get the donkey back."
>
> Donkeys are not alone. Horses also face new checks.
>
> "The Americans always check our horse carriages. Every time we ride
> around
> they stop us and check our wooden boxes for weapons," said Ali Hassan, in
> the muddy streets of the Sadr City slum, as horse owners bought kerosene
> among piles of rotten garbage swarming with flies.
>
> Copyright © 2003 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
>
>
>
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