War in Iraq Coverage from National Public Radio Discuss the conflict Audio Reporter Paul McEnroe describes the incident Your Voice Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.

	E-mail this page			Print this page

Star Tribune of Minneapolis reporter, photographer escape death in Iraq
April 11, 2003

Minneapolis, Minn. — (AP) A Star Tribune reporter and photographer escaped an attempt by two Iraqi fighters to kill them near the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

In a dispatch from Kirkuk published Friday, reporter Paul McEnroe said he and photographer Richard Sennott went to the oil refinery a few miles from Kirkuk after the city fell to Kurdish fighters Thursday. The Iraqi Army had fled, but up to 50 die-hards from the Fedayeen Saddam militia had decided to make their final stand at the refinery, the newspaper said.

After hiding throughout the afternoon in a bunker mostly shielded by smoke from a burning oil well, two fighters "decided to take their death ride" and attack the two American journalists who were about 200 yards away, McEnroe wrote.

They jumped into a troop truck filled with weapons. Six local Kurdish militiamen, alerted to the pro-Saddam fighters minutes earlier, ran down the road and encircled the truck with rifles raised.

"The driver jumped out with a grenade in his right hand, and common sense began to unravel," McEnroe wrote.

"Just let me go - I won't kill you, I want to kill the Americans," the fighter yelled as he walked toward one of the backpedaling Kurdish militiamen who had encircled him. "I'm Saddam's Fedayeen."

A warning shot was fired.

"Leave me to the Americans," he screamed, ignoring the shot.

"Kill him! Kill him! Get it over with, get rid of him," screamed Sabir Abdul Rahan, one of the militiamen. His urging was ignored.

The Fedayeen fighter kept walking, and militiaman grabbed for the soldier's hands, trying to clamp down on them so he couldn't let go of the grenade's firing hammer. They wrestled for about a minute while the others stood by.

The soldier broke free, grenade still in his hand. He ran toward the reporter and photographer, who fled. The soldier then veered into a field and disappeared into high grass.

"For reasons they couldn't explain, Sabir and his squad didn't shoot him as he took off," McEnroe wrote.

The remaining Fedayeen soldier, sitting on the passenger side of the truck, was shot by a militiaman and yanked to the ground and searched in case he had a hidden bomb. The Americans had returned, and the wounded Fedayeen soldier stared up at the men he and his partner had tried to kill, McEnroe wrote.

"Let him die, leave him. We have no place to take him," militiaman Shakawt Muhammad said. "It's better to let him die."

Muhammad was quoted as saying the fighter knew the journalists were Americans because he was hiding so close he could hear them speaking English.

"For 15 minutes, the dying soldier rolled in the grass and gasped for air. He closed his eyes as if it was the end. Then he somehow found the strength to hold on. He never asked for help from the militiamen - just the Americans," McEnroe wrote.

"The dying Iraqi fighter looked deep into the faces of his intended victims ... and with an outstretched hand whispered a plea: 'Kaka, kaka,"' McEnroe wrote. "My brother, my brother, he said as his life ebbed away from the gunshot through his abdomen."

News Headlines

Related Subjects