... Last month, townspeople say, [in DHULUAIYAH, Iraq] tribal leaders gave a farmer named Salim Khaldoun a sobering choice: Kill your son, or watch your entire family be killed. His son Sabah, 29, had committed a terrible crime. Eager for money, he had tipped off the Americans to a house where he said Saddam Hussein had stayed. U.S. soldiers raided the house, finding no trace of Saddam but killing a 12-year-old boy. Sabah, neighbours say, accompanied the soldiers on the raid. His face was covered with a sack, but locals recognized him easily. "Sabah also gave information about former intelligence and military officers," neighbour Ahmed Ibrahim confided. "He did it for money." Dhuluaiyah is a one-street town 85 km northwest of Baghdad in the "Sunni Triangle" where U.S. forces have met the fiercest resistance. A month after Sabah Salim’s death, few people are willing to discuss how he died. "I don’t know how he was killed, but he deserved it because he was a traitor," Ibrahim said. The head of the town’s tribal council, Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh, refused to discuss it and described the incident as "mere family business."
Police Maj. Mehdi Saleh said nobody had asked for an investigation or even a death certificate. He said no probe was being conducted because it "could be sensitive in the community." Outside, a police captain jumped inside a reporter’s car to give a fuller story. The tribal council, he said, went to Salim Khaldoun with a message: "Kill your son, or the whole family will be wiped out." The next day, Sabah was found dead in his family’s farm, the officer said. The father hasn’t been seen since. A relative confirmed that Salim Khaldoun had killed his son. |