WP: A Bloody Attack and a Shot at Martyrdom

[kskiska]

Sunday, September 21, 2003; Page A01

KHALDIYA, Iraq -- In an austere room with concrete floors and walls adorned with two renderings of Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca, two brothers of Adnan Fahdawi pulled out a creased and torn green folder stuffed with the memorabilia of martyrdom.

(snip)

"Today, we have sacrificed ourselves to defend our honor and pride," read the typed statement, embossed with traditional religious invocations in floral, Arabic script. "We have sacrificed our souls for the sake of Islam, sacrificed our souls to get rid of the monkeys, pigs, Jews and Christians. To all our brothers and sisters, we prevail on you to be joyful with us."

In the guerrilla war that grips the provincial towns and weary villages of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, the U.S. occupation is meeting resistance from those President Bush has described as foreign terrorists and "members of the old Saddam regime who fled the battlefield and now fight in the shadows." They have a common goal, he said in an address this month: "reclaiming Iraq for tyranny."

But in this Sunni Muslim town colored in shades of brown and intersected by canals of open sewage, Fahdawi and the others who died are celebrated as heroes. Neighbors and relatives call them defenders of faith, not supporters of former president Saddam Hussein. And in their words, actions and ideas, relatives say, the men represent a homegrown movement, grounded in a militant reading of religion, that augurs a new enemy for the occupation.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40725-2003Sep20.html