BAGHDAD — Members of the largest group battling the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq deny participating in the wave of recent abductions of foreigners and call the perpetrators “cowards.”
Fighters with the Fallujah-based “Army of Muhammad” said they do not condone or participate in the kidnapping of noncombatant foreigners, but they do consider contract employees working for the U.S. military or the Coalition Provisional Authority legitimate targets.
Using an alias, one fighter calling himself Muhammad said although his group is aware of the kidnappings of journalists and aid workers, it opposes such efforts.
“We are holy warriors, not kidnappers,” he said in his cousin’s middle-class Baghdad home. “We want to fight the Jews and Americans that occupy our land, but we are brave. Those who kidnap unarmed people and make demands are cowards who don’t want to fight.”
Muhammad fought for a week in the restive city of Fallujah, where hundreds of Iraqis and scores of American soldiers have been killed in the past two weeks.
“We consider civilians working with the Americans to be targets, and those we kill,” he said. “But we have no need for prisoners. And journalists have nothing to fear from the Army of Muhammad as long as they print the truth.”
More than 20 foreigners are thought to have been kidnapped in the southern and western parts of Iraq in the past 10 days and remain in custody. Dozens more have been detained and released. Only one — an Italian security guard — is known to have been killed.
Another commander for the group, contacted through an intermediary, said his group has detained journalists and other workers but released them once their identities were confirmed.
The Army of Muhammad also says it is holding U.S. troops as prisoners, but this could not be verified.
Part of the reason for the increase in abductions, the insurgent commander said, is that anticoalition groups have changed their tactics to focus on targeting lightly defended U.S. supply convoys to cripple military operations.
As a result, the insurgents are encountering more Western civilians, the commander said.
“We have decided to deny the enemy his access to roads,” he said. “We have identified the roads they use to supply their bases, and those trucks have fewer defenses than the bases. We want to deny the Americans the ability to move off their bases. No supplies, no movement.”
“We even know the bridges that are used, and if we have to, we’ll destroy those,” the commander said. “Iraqis can always rebuild them after the Americans leave.”
Many supply trucks are driven by private contractors and even guarded by private security firms, making them relatively easy targets.
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