The making of an Iraqi guerrilla: one man's tale

BAGHDAD – One night at the end of June, a young Iraqi man goes out to ambush an American convoy near the central Iraqi town of Fallujah.

He is wearing his favorite blue tracksuit. He is a small guy, solid and compact, with cropped dark hair and a chin that juts out slightly. He likes tough sports, especially handball. He can stub out a cigarette on the calluses of his left palm. It will be his first time in combat.


Although he has trained only fleetingly for what he is about to do, he is not afraid. "If I die for a reason, that's a nice thing," he says later.

Since President Bush declared major hostilities in Iraq over on May 1, a rising tide of ambushes, explosions, and small-arms attacks has killed 60 Americans.

The man's motivations for attacking the convoy are simple: to resist the American "insult to Iraqi and Arab tradition."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0815/p01s04-woiq.html

Most of these people are no "Saddam loyalists".