Iraqi Shopkeepers turn guns on insurgents

The Taipei Times ^
Posted on 03/24/2005 3:26:28 PM EST

IRAQ: Residents and store owners in one Baghdad neighborhood responded with gunfire of their own when insurgents began shooting at customers yesterday

AP , BAGHDAD, IRAQ Thursday, Mar 24, 2005

Shopkeepers and residents on one of Baghdad's main streets pulled out their own guns and killed three insurgents when hooded men began shooting at passers-by, giving a rare victory to civilians increasingly frustrated by the violence bleeding Iraq.

The clash on Tuesday in the capital's southern Doura neighborhood erupted when militants in three cars sprayed bullets at shoppers, Interior Ministry officials said. Three people -- a man, a woman and a child -- were wounded.

The motive was unclear, but there have been previous attacks in the ethnically mixed neighborhood. Earlier in the day, gunmen in the same quarter killed a policeman as he drove to work, police Lieutenant Colonel Hafidh Al-Ghrayri said.

A forceful citizen response is rare, but not unheard of in a country where conflict has become commonplace and the law allows each home to have a weapon. Earlier this month, police said townsmen in Wihda, 40km south of Baghdad, attacked a group of militants believed planning to raid the town and killed seven.

Good for them! If more of them would do this the terrorists (we need to stop calling them insurgents) might decide it's not a healthy thing to do.....

Here we are working so hard to help Iraq follow the US example, i.e. democratically elected government, and here they are setting an example that we ought to follow.

The good Iraqi people have tasted freedom & free commerce now and they WILL completely take back their own country from the thugs & killers.
It will take some time but, they'll not put up with these random terror attacks on their own innocent people for too much longer.
We are actually witness to the birth of a new free nation.
Neat! :smile: