Falloujans Cheer Changing of Guard

As U.S. Marines continued their withdrawal Sunday from Fallouja’s dusty roads, residents sang and waved their head scarves in joy. Many returned to their battered homes, wondering who would rebuild the rubble.

Commanders with the new Iraqi military force charged with controlling the town strolled around and talked to residents, some of whom gathered at the few shops and the gas station that were open for business. A man with a loudspeaker proclaimed his glee from a meandering fire engine.

Like many people here, Mahmoud Tfaish was glad to see the flash of burgundy berets and green uniforms from Saddam Hussein’s time. If fighting again comes to this Sunni Muslim stronghold, he said, he and the other men would take up arms against the Americans, just as they did during the last three weeks.

“Every Falloujan who was able to carry weapons participated,” Tfaish said. “All of us are mujahedin. No masks will be used anymore by the mujahedin. We are struggling openly. Our relationship with the new Iraqi commander and his people is very good. They did not come on the back of the American tanks. They are our sons.”

A sign hanging on the main gate of a mosque captures the city’s defiance of U.S. forces: “We are the soldiers of Muhammad and not the soldiers of Saddam. We love death as you love life.”

“The only fighters are the Falloujans,” said an aide to Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh, an Iraqi commander, throwing cold water on the idea that foreigners spearheaded the fighting. “There are no Arabs, and if there were Arabs it is not a shame upon the city of Islam. The Americans brought different nationalities -- British, Spanish, Salvadorans, Ukrainians. Is it acceptable for them and rejected for us?”

This sentiment is widespread in Fallouja, which has become a symbol of insurrection. However, many hope for the return of tranquillity. This is a place where sadness still lingers beside happiness, where those killed in the fighting are still being counted and where coils of razor wire and checkpoints are the trappings of dangerous terrain.

“I was surprised to find my house completely damaged,” said Karim Afan, of the Shurta neighborhood. “Who is going to compensate me?”

“My house was burned with all the furniture,” said Abu Talib. “It was probably an American warplane rocket. The Americans ... are worse than Saddam in harming people.”

U.S. forces handed out pamphlets asking residents to report damage to their homes and repair estimates to government officials. Graffiti on walls around the destruction read: “Fallouja is the cemetery of the Americans” and “Long live the mujahedin.”

Saleh, his mustache thick, his gait sturdy, looked around at all that must be restored.

“People are hungry,” he said in an earlier interview. “The key to security and tranquillity is in the hands of the Americans.”

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Staff writer Jeffrey Fleishman in Baghdad contributed to this report.