DOING MCGRUFF PROUD:

Ordinary Iraqis Wage a Successful Battle Against Insurgents (ROBERT F. WORTH, March 22, 2005, NY Times)

Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon today, a carpenter named Dhia saw a troop of masked gunmen with grenades coming towards his shop and decided he had had enough.

As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia and his young relatives shouldered their own AK-47's and opened fire, police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed, and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's young nephews and a bystander were injured, the police said.

"We attacked them before they attacked us," Dhia, 35, his face still contorted with rage and excitement, said in a brief exchange at his shop a few hours after the battle. He did not give his last name. "We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen. I am waiting for the rest of them to come and we will show them."

It was the first time that private citizens are known to have retaliated successfully against insurgents. There have been anecdotal reports of residents shooting at attackers after a bombing or assassination. But the gun battle today erupted in full view of half a dozen witnesses, including a Justice Ministry official who lives nearby.

The battle was the latest sign that Iraqis may be willing to start standing up against the attacks that leave dozens of people dead here nearly every week.

MORE:
Iraq says 80 rebels killed in clash (QASIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, March 23, 2005, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

A raid by U.S. and Iraqi forces on a suspected rebel training camp left 80 militants dead, the single biggest one-day death toll for rebels in months and the latest in a series of blows to the country's insurgency, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

Politicians helping shape a post-election government expected within days said negotiators are considering naming a Sunni Arab as defense minister in a move aimed at bringing Sunni Arabs into the political process-- and perhaps deflate the insurgency they lead.

The U.S. military announced late Tuesday that its air and ground forces backed Iraqi commandos during a noontime raid on a suspected guerrilla training camp near Lake Tharthar in central Iraq. Seven commandos died in fighting, the U.S. military said, but it didn't give a death toll for rebels.

Iraqi officials said Wednesday 80 rebels died in the clash-- the largest number of rebels killed in a single battle since the U.S. Marine-led November attack on the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah that left more than 1,000 dead. On Sunday, U.S. forces killed 26 assailants after they were ambushed south of Baghdad.