BAGHDAD—Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon yesterday, a carpenter named Dhia saw a group of masked gunmen with grenades coming toward his shop and decided he had had enough.
As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia, 35, and his young relatives shouldered their own AK-47s and opened fire, the police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's nephews and a bystander were injured, the police said.
"We attacked them before they attacked us," Dhia said in a brief exchange at his shop a few hours after the battle, his face still contorted with rage and excitement. He did not give his last name. "We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen. I am waiting for the rest of them to come and we will show them."
It was the first time private citizens are known to have retaliated successfully against insurgents. There have been anecdotal reports of residents shooting at attackers after a bombing or assassination, but yesterday's gun battle erupted in full view of half a dozen witnesses, including a justice ministry official who lives nearby.
YES! YES! BRAVO!!!!
1 comment:
Actually, mon pal Alia, the self-defense isn't the first event like this.
In the article I posted the evening before and my commentary (The Right to Bear Arms pays off for Iraqi shopkeepers) it has accounts of other actions by Iraqi citizens.
Iraqi self-defense, while not a first, is certainly more rare than common. But I bet we see more of this! And ain't it grand!
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