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US
Forces Hold Iraqi Women As “Bargaining Chips”
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An elderly Iraqi woman calls on US troops to leave the country
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By
Samir Haddad, IOL Correspondent
BAGHDAD,
September 13 (IslamOnline.net) – An Iraqi resistance group
threatened Sunday, September 12, a volcano of attacks against the US
occupation forces, who have taken Iraqi women hostage to exchange them
with fighters.
A
group calling itself the Saladin Al-Ayyubi Brigades, the military wing
of the Sunni Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance, said the
occupation troops kidnapped a mother and three girls on August 26 in
Al-Latifia district, 70 kilometers south of Baghdad.
“The
coward Americans demanded Iraqi resistance fighters in the area to lay
down their arms and hand themselves in to release the four female
hostages.
“We
vow to teach the US troops a lesson for such a cowardly act unless
they set the four free and unharmed,” read the statement, a copy of
which was obtained by IslamOnline.net.
“Only
men with brave hearts could stand up a fight at battle fields, but
cowards resort to such mean ways.
“It
is high time that the Iraqis, Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds, took an
action to defend their honor. We are ready to sacrifice ourselves and
offer our lives as a simple token to protect our women,” it added.
The
Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance was
formed on May 30 as an umbrella for all Sunni
resistance groups.
The
incident is not unprecedented. In the wake of the downfall of the
Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, US occupation forces held captive the
two wives and sister of the former Iraqi vice president Izat Al-Douri
to pressure him.
One
wife was released in May, but the fate of the other is still unknown,
according to an Iraqi female lawyer who was released from detention in
May, 2004.
According
to Iraqi sources, there are at least 15 Iraqi woman detainees still in
US-run detentions camps across Iraq.
A
freed detainee told the Arabic-language Al-Wasat, a weekly
supplement of the respectable London-based Al-Hayat newspaper,
about her ordeal inside a US prison and how she had been gang-raped
by US forces.
Italian
Female Hostages
In
a related development, another group calling itself the Supporters of
Al-Zawhri, in reference to Al-Qaeda’s number two Ayman Al-Zawhri,
demanded the US military release all Iraqi woman detainees, promising
in return to provide information about the fate of two Italian woman
hostages.
Armed
men kidnapped
Simona Pari and Simona Torretta Tuesday, September 7, from their
Baghdad offices at gunpoint along with two fellow Iraqi aid workers.
On
its May 12, 2004, edition, British daily the Guardian reported
that the US occupation forces had released most of Iraqi female
detainees as the bombshell of abuse scandal was still unfolding.
The
daily pointed out then that Iraqi female prisoners were kept in
solitary confinement up to 23 hours a day, adding it saw pictures of
US soldiers raping Iraqi women or photographing them naked in prison.
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