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Arab
volunteers determined to resist occupation
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By
Tareq Delwani, IOL Jordan Correspondent
AMMAN,
April 16 (IslamOnline.net) - The families of Jordanian volunteers, who
vowed their unflinching determination to pay the ultimate sacrifice in
defending Iraq and Islam, voiced their misgivings that their sons who
came home would suffer the same fate of Arab Afghans.
Speaking
to IslamOnline.net, a number of those volunteers, whose number hit 300
people according to unofficial estimates, said the Jordanian police
stripped them of their passports and asked them to “pass by every
now and then to decide whether or not they would take them once
again.”
“My
brother is a father of three children and work in the ministry of waqf
(religious endowments)…He would lose his job if he came back,”
said one brother of a volunteer, who refused to put his name.
“I
know a number of volunteers who came back and were stripped of their
passports the moment they entered Jordan,” he said.
Another
volunteer, who also refused to be identified, said a lot of Jordanian
volunteers were not able at the first place to leave Syria and were
also stripped of their passports once they came back.
“Ahmad
and Mohammed went to fight off the invading troops in Iraq, but they
have not come back yet and we do not know whether they have been
killed or taken prisoners,” a father lamented his two sons.
The
mother of 35-year-old Arafat said her son sent her a letter two days
ago with one of the volunteers.
“He
reassured me that he was well and alive, but decided to stay in
Baghdad,” she told IslamOnline.net, adding that her son told her
about those who were martyred and laid to rest in Baghdad.
First
Jordanian Martyr
Belal
Mohammed Saleem, 23, is the first Jordanian volunteer who suffered
martyrdom in Iraq. He went to Baghdad the second day after the
U.S.-led war on Iraq had erupted.
He
kissed his mother goodbye and gave her a piece of paper he wrote about
the noble status of martyrs in the Hereafter.
“He
did not even write his own will, but left this piece of paper in which
he compiled a number of noble verses and Hadiths (the Prophet’s
sayings) on martyrdom,” once his first of kin told IslamOnline.net.
Hearing
about his martyrdom, his clan decided to receive “congratulations”
and not condolences on the martyrdom of their beloved Saleem.
“Of
course we are proud of him,” said some of his relatives.
“He
graduated from the faculty of commerce in 2002. He was buried in
Baghdad because we did not manage to bring his body home during the
barbaric U.S. onslaughts on Iraq,” his brother said.
Fierce
Battle in Saddam Airport
One
of the volunteers said that the U.S. troops suffered great losses in
battle of Saddam airport, adding that some of the volunteers kept on
fighting off the U.S. troops even after the
fall of the Iraqi regime.
“I
joined one unit of Saddam’s paramilitary fedayeen and we received
orders to push forward to liberate the airport,” he said. “A
fierce four-hour battle raged between us and the U.S. troops.”
Not
To Defend Saddam
“We
did not go all the way to Iraq to defend Saddam, never…Went there to
defend Iraq,” another volunteer said.
“Two
of my cousins rejected to come back and insisted on staying there
although the Iraqi regime had collapsed. Some of the Iraqis asserted
that Saddam was betrayed by some of his Republican Guard and was
killed during the U.S. air strikes on Al-Mansour district in
Baghdad,” he added.
Dr.
Ibrahim Aloush, a Jordanian political analyst, said he personally met
with a number of Arab volunteers who came back to Jordan from Iraq.
“One
has to bear in mind the fact that the invading troops are green with
envy (against Islam and Arabs) and would down-tread all ethical and
human values when dealing with those volunteers,” he told
IslamOnline.net.
“The
scenarios of Guantanamo prisoners and Arab Afghans could be easily
repeated…Massacres could be committed against Arab volunteers,” he
added.
