The Hindu : Fallujah: Bremer vows to punish killers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 02, 2004

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International

Fallujah: Bremer vows to punish killers

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, APRIL 1. The U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, today pledged to punish those responsible for the killing of four American contractors, whose bodies were burnt and mutilated after their vehicles were attacked in the restive town of Fallujah.

Mr. Bremer said that the killing of the contractors and five U.S. soldiers, in a separate attack on Wednesday, would not "go unpunished." The Interior Minister of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council of Iraq, Nori al Badran, said, "Forces will be sent to Fallujah ... from the army, the police and from the civil defence (force) ... to bring killers to justice.'' There were, however, no signs yet of a military build up there.

Keeping up the pressure on American forces, Iraqi guerillas targeted a U.S. convoy near the town today and set an American Humvee on fire. The U.S. has lost 48 soldiers during March, which registered the second highest number of casualties in a month after November, when 82 troops were killed. In Wednesday's incident, the four contractors belonging to an American private security firm were travelling in two four-wheel-drive jeeps, when they were attacked. Their vehicles were set ablaze after they were subjected to a grenade and gunfire assault.

Eyewitnesses said crowds surrounded the burning cars and dragged out the corpses. Television pictures showed people kicking and stamping on one burnt body while at least two corpses were tied to cars and driven through the streets. Their charred remains were later hung from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

Analysts view this incident as significant because it evokes memories of a similar attack on the U.S. forces in Somalia, a decade ago. That incident where bodies of U.S. soldiers were dragged in the streets of Mogadishu became a turning point in the U.S. involvement in the African nation, and ended up with the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from there. Aware of the symbolism, the U.S. authorities have stressed that Washington would not alter its course in Iraq.

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