'Give up toy guns' order to prevent Iraqi child deaths

Soldiers in a former “triangle of death” Iraqi city have a new mission - confiscate all toy guns.

The Iraqi military in Mahmoudiya has ordered families to surrender all toy weapons in a bid to prevent children from being mistaken for militants.

American soldiers are clearing all toy guns from the city’s bustling shopping area as they search for suspected insurgents and weapons caches.

British soldiers in the southern Iraqi province of Basra have also become concerned about children playing with toy guns, although no ban has been imposed.

The British military issued a public safety announcement yesterday asking parents not to allow their children to play with toy guns on the streets “in case security forces mistake them for real weapons and open fire”.

Spokesman Major Bill Young said the issue was coming up for the first time since the war started nearly six years ago – perhaps because of a possible influx of toy guns or because better security is encouraging people to spend more time outdoors.

“Maybe last year children wouldn’t have been out on the ground and their parents wouldn’t have let them play with the toy guns,” he said.

“But there is still a risk with a significant number of British and Iraqi troops on the ground with weapons.”

The toy gun ban indicates how jittery the US and Iraqi forces still are in a country where the enemy does not wear a uniform.

The US warned early this year of a “disturbing trend” of al-Qaida in Iraq recruiting and teaching young boys as young as 10 to kidnap and kill.

Soldiers in the Mahmoudiya area recently became alarmed when they saw a boy pointing a gun. They went on alert and held the child until it was determined that the gun was a toy.

“This is one of the biggest issues that we’re encountering right now,” said Lt Cameron Mays, 24, of Kentucky.

“You’re talking about a prime situation where a US soldier has a split second to make a decision about whether there’s a danger.”

The order to ban toy guns in Mahmoudiya and surrounding areas was handed down by Staff Maj. Gen. Ali Jassim al-Freiji, the commander of the Iraqi army’s 17th Division, which oversees the region.

First Lt Tray Marsh, who took a plastic pistol given to his unit by two Iraqi boys, praised and gave sweets to the youngsters he and other US soldiers began a joint foot patrol with their Iraqi counterparts through the city’s main market area.

Members of Delta Company, 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 63rd Armour Regiment, based in Fort Riley, Kansas, have collected 15 plastic weapons in the past two weeks, piling them up on filing cabinets and hanging some on the walls in their office at the US base at Mahmoudiya.

Lt Marsh, 34, of Louisiana, showed a gun from the plastic weapons cache that could easily be mistaken for a real nickel-plated .45-calibre pistol.

Going after toys is a somewhat welcome change for the soldiers – many of whom are on at least their second tour in Iraq and participated in the fierce fighting that raged as recently as this spring.

Mahmoudiya is part of a region that was long known as the “triangle of death” because of battles between Sunni and Shiite extremists.

Military officials said it was up to Iraqi authorities to impose such bans as part of local security measures.

Quirkily, Iraq has no law forbidding ownership of real guns, and every household is permitted to have one firearm for self defence.