Images of rebel killing spark fury

ARABS were torn between seething rage at images of a US soldier shooting dead a wounded Iraqi in a mosque and dismay at Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah for turning holy mosques into battlegrounds.

Viewers said images, which Arab televisions aired repeatedly, of a marine killing a severely injured Iraqi, fuelled growing hatred against America and helped create more “terrorists”.

“I am not a jihadist, I am just a normal Muslim but such scenes are pushing me to jihad,” said Dubai-based engineer Abdallah. “We don’t expect this from the representative of democracy in the world. This is one of the things we saw on TV. God knows how many crimes they have committed which we have not seen.”

In Saudi Arabia, residents said insurgents were to blame for taking their battle into mosques.

“If I was in the US soldier’s place, I would have killed all the insurgents because they are mercenaries,” said Saudi Zaher al-Saleh, a 32-year-old teacher. “They have turned the mosques into battlefields and they’re killing civilians.”

Islamist extremists called for revenge through their websites and cursed pro-US Muslim leaders for remaining silent.

“Oh God, your enemies have killed your believers in one of your houses. God take revenge for us,” one contributor said.

Some Muslims saw the killing as a personal affront.

“It’s as if they had killed every one of us. Today, it’s that poor man, tomorrow, it will be me,” said Sherine Mohamed, 27, a financial analyst. “Even if militants didn’t respect mosque sanctities, US soldiers should have done so because they claim to help Iraqis.”

Muslims said pictures showing marines lounging with their guns in a Fallujah mosque were “insulting”.

They said soldiers “sullied the ground with their boots” at the mosque where Muslims are obliged to take off their shoes.

“If they think they are getting rid of terrorists this way, they are mistaken. They are creating more terrorists than killing them,” said Abdallah.

International human rights groups said the killing could be a war crime and showed the need to better train US forces about the laws of war. The US military opened an investigation into whether the marine acted in self-defence, broke US military law or committed a war crime in the fatal shooting of a wounded Iraqi in Fallujah, the scene of fierce fighting between US forces and Iraqi and Islamist militants in the past week.

The shooting was caught on videotape by an embedded NBC television crew.