DULUIYAH, October 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Khudeir Khalil was a simple quiet Iraqi farmer before U.S. forces drove tanks onto his property.

Claiming his lush date and orange groves provide camouflage for resistance fighters, the U.S. occupation forces leveled Khalil's plantations.

But he feels skeptical, wondering "what kind of civilized people are those who are destroying my plants".

"They say resistance fighters could hide in the fields, but I tell you these are my fields and nobody goes into them. There are no attacks around here," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP), as a mob of angry men in traditional Arab white robes nod in support.

Khalil is sitting on the side of a dusty road leading to his native Duluiyah, a large village where Sunni Muslim tribes farm a modest living out of the banks of the Tigris river.

But the plantation fields are barren resembling the aftermath of a hurricane after U.S. troops last week razed the paddocks of fruit trees. Now a handful of residents are scavenging the trunks and debris to make charcoal.

"We cannot benefit from the fruits anymore, so we will try to earn some money from charcoal," explained Mohammad Saleh amid the stone houses which were once shaded by the plantation.

Duluiyah, more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Baghdad, lies in an area where most attacks against U.S. occupation forces are being launched.

U.S. authorities in occupied Iraq are tight-lipped about the plantation clearing, as U.S. overseer Paul Bremer said he had "no idea" when asked why the plantations were cleared, adding: "It's the first I've heard about it."

And Master Sergeant Robert Cargie, of the 4th Infantry Division controlling the area, said "we cannot get specific on these operations.

"But if an area is determined to be useful as an ambush point, we will seek to eliminate that as a threat."

Such operations may not be widespread across the country, but trees have been felled around Baghdad International Airport, which has been attacked by mortar fire since the U.S. took control with the fall of the regime on April 9.

Resistance is the only option now?!

But for Khalil and his neighbors, the destruction of more than 25,000 square meters (30,000 sq. yards) of palm groves and fruit trees by U.S. forces which farmers said were feeding around 500 people is inexcusable.

"They came in last week without prior notice, cut off the main road and worked for three days and three nights to destroy our plantations with their bulldozers," recalled farmer Fida' Shehab.

"Some women and children tried going into the fields to pick and salvage some of the fruit from destruction, but the American troops fired into the air to scare them off," he said.

Mubarak Saleh, another farmer from the area, explained that a delegation of farmers and municipality officials held meetings with the top U.S. officer in town in a bid to settle the spiraling dispute.

"We tried to make them stop destroying our fields or at least ask for compensation," he said.

"But all they said was: 'When the resistance will stop, we will stop destroying the fields,'" said Saleh.

"We are not responsible for the Americans' failure to stop attacks, and killing trees will not stop them," he added.

Khalil, a 35-year-old father of seven children, said: "I just lost 15 million dinars (7,500 dollars) in dates and eight million dinars (4,000 dollars) in oranges.

"This is a fortune here in Iraq and my only way of living," he said.3

A tall man standing behind the crowd suddenly raises a warning finger and says: "Some people who lost their fields are begging, others are stealing cars, but now that we have nothing to do, maybe we will join the resistance.