Mutilation, not murders, condemned

From combined dispatches

FALLUJAH, Iraq — Muslim clerics yesterday condemned the mutilation this week of the bodies of four American civilians — but not the slayings — as U.S. intelligence sources identified the attackers as former members of Iraq’s paramilitary forces and “non-Iraqi Arabs.”

ABC News, citing the intelligence sources, reported yesterday that U.S. forces were expected to take decisive action against the attackers of the four contractors within the next several days, and that they knew who they were going after.

There was no sign of any U.S. military activity in the Fallujah area to suggest that retaliatory action for the grisly killings was imminent, despite U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer’s pledge that those who killed the workers for a North Carolina-based security firm and burned their bodies “will not go unpunished.”

The U.S. contractors were “targets of opportunity” who had the bad luck to drive into a planned ambush site, ABC quoted U.S. intelligence sources as saying.

Eyewitnesses have told intelligence sources there were seven to 18 assailants involved in the attack, ABC said.

It said Iraqi insurgents had set up several ambush points around Fallujah, and had stocked them with gasoline on the morning of the attack. Some townspeople had been warned to stay inside, the intelligence officials told the network.

Yesterday, Sheik Fawzi Nameq addressed 600 worshippers at a mosque opposite the mayor’s office, not far from the scene of the deadly ambush of the American civilians.

“Islam does not condone the mutilation of the bodies of the dead,” the cleric said.

“Why do you want to bring destruction to our city? Why do you want to bring humiliation to the faithful? My brothers, wisdom is required here,” said Sheik Nameq, who did not pass a judgment on the killings.

His sermon followed a directive issued by senior Fallujah clerics asking mosque imams to denounce the mutilation.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of U.S. military operations in Iraq, said condemning only the mutilations was not enough.

“That is only a partial answer,” Gen. Kimmitt said in an e-mail message to the Associated Press. “Murder of innocents should be condemned.”

The U.S. commander has pledged to hunt down those who carried out the killings, but said clashes could be avoided if Fallujah officials make arrests.

Fallujah residents said the U.S. forces should think carefully about any reaction.

“If they enter Fallujah and use force, it will only be met with force and this will happen over and over,” said Lt. Mohammed Tarik, a member of the U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces in the city.

The charred remains of the Americans were dragged through the streets after insurgents ambushed their vehicles. Two bodies were hung from a bridge and people beat them with shoes and a pole.

Three of the four civilian contractors who were killed Wednesday have been identified.

Scott Helvenston, 38, Jerko “Jerry” Zovko, 32, and Michael Teague, 38, were all described as devoted to their family and country. The contractors were working for Blackwater Security Consulting, based in Moyock, N.C.

After serving 12 years in the U.S. Navy, Mr. Helvenston, of Oceanside, Calif., started a career as a fitness instructor and worked as trainer and stunt man for such movies as “Face/Off” and “G.I. Jane.”

Mr. Zovko, of Willoughby, Ohio, joined the Army at 19 and spoke five languages fluently — English, Arabic, Croatian, Russian and Spanish, said his mother, Danica.

Mr. Teague, of Clarksville, Tenn., was a 12-year Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, Panama and Grenada, said his wife, Rhonda Teague. She said he received a Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan.

The gruesome events in Fallujah, and the likelihood of a U.S. military response, brought to the surface months of pent-up resentment against the American occupation.

“Islam bans what was done to the bodies, but the Americans are as brutal as the youths who burned and mutilated the bodies,” said Mahdi Ahmed Saleh, a retired school principal who now runs a small grocery store. “They have done so much to us and they have humiliated us so often.”

Mr. Saleh, like most men in Fallujah, singled out raids on homes as the most troubling U.S. military practice.

“Look at this wide and long street,” he said. “Do you see any women? So, if we don’t let them out on the street, can you imagine how we feel when American soldiers barge in and see them in their sleeping gowns?”

Fallujah is in the Sunni Muslim heartland, an area where resistance to American-led forces is strongest and where Saddam Hussein found many recruits for his elite army units and feared security agencies.

City residents say their suffering under occupation has been compounded by their loss of power in the post-Saddam political order. Iraq’s Shi’ite majority and the large ethnic Kurdish community now are the two dominant forces in Iraq.

A poll of Iraqis showed 71 percent of those in Anbar province found attacks on coalition forces acceptable. Only 17 percent of Iraqis elsewhere shared that view. The poll, conducted in February by Oxford Research International, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Local officials have said significant improvements are needed in Fallujah.

“We were hoping to see one large project that we can point to and say the Americans have done something for us, like a bridge or a hospital,” Brig. Aboud Farhan al-Issawi, the city’s police chief, said late last month. “If American promises remain [only] ink on paper, there will be no trust.”

The U.S. military says it had spent at least $40 million on development projects in Anbar province over the past year.

Citing security and safety needs, Marine officials in Fallujah and elsewhere in the volatile region have begun restricting the information they give out about insurgent attacks, a break from the practice of the army and other services.

“Force-protection measures preclude the release of any information that could aid enemy personnel in assessing the effectiveness [of] their tactics, techniques and procedures,” according to a Marine statement from the Fallujah base camp.