Terrorists find another use for children (besides as targets to be shot in the back):
Parts of Baghdad also remain combat zones.Posted by Alan at September 5, 2004 08:41 AMPropped on pillows in a ward of the Baghdad combat hospital Saturday afternoon, Spec. Christopher Riang, 19, wore a zipper of surgical staples up his abdomen after a nasty surprise the night before off the capital's hostile Haifa Street.
"I yelled 'grenade!' and made sure the Iraqi translator took off," he said, describing the overnight ambush that left him with a belly full of steel shards. "Then I took off. I guess I couldn't outrun the grenade."
The interpreter was also injured, as were four other 1st Cavalry soldiers caught in the alley when grenades began raining down.
"Almost everybody took shrapnel," said Capt. Chris Ford, the company commander.
"Basically, we had to fight our way out of that alley," Ford said. Bradleys came to help, he said, but most of the patrolling in the largely hostile neighborhood is conducted on foot.
"It's a labyrinth," Ford said. "And it's conducive to their kind of fighting."
More and more often, children are lobbing the grenades, Ford said. Insurgents offer boys of 10 or 12 years old $150 to toss a grenade at a U.S. patrol, the captain said.
"For the longest time, we've had a good relationship with the children," Ford said. "Now this. Who enjoys putting a bead on a kid?
"Nobody. That's why they paid them."