OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

 An image from video shown during a U.S. Central Command news conference April 2 shows the rescue of Private First Class Jessica Lynch on April 1. (Department of Defense image)

Private First Class Jessica Lynch is rescued

Reports: Iraqi Risked Life Leading Marines to Rescued POW

Friday, April 04, 2003

An Iraqi lawyer tipped U.S. forces to the location of POW Jessica Lynch after seeing her slapped in the face by a burly Fedayeen security man guarding her in a Nasiriyah hospital, according published reports.

The 32-year-old lawyer, identified only as Mohammed, told The Washington Post and USA Today that he peered through a window at the hospital where his wife worked as a nurse and saw a sight that "cut" his heart: Lynch being slapped in the face by the black-clad Iraqi security agent.

He said he decided on the spot he had to tell U.S. forces where to find the captured American private.

"Don't worry, don't worry," he recalled telling Lynch after later sneaking into her hospital room and promising to help.

Mohammed walked out of Nasiriyah along a treacherous road known as "ambush alley" and, hands raised, approached a U.S. Marine.

The Marine asked curtly: "What do you want?" Mohammed offered "important information about woman soldier in hospital."

In the days that followed, Mohammed made several more risky trips to the hospital, which was full of Iraqi security guards, at the request of U.S. officers. He gathered information on the number of troops and made hand-drawn maps of the building's layout and location.

His wife, Iman, filled in other crucial details, including the fact a helicopter could land on the roof, according to USA Today.

Lynch, a 19-year-old Army supply clerk, was captured in an ambush when she and other members of the 507th Maintenance Company made a wrong turn in Nasiriyah. U.S. commandos rescued her Tuesday in a nighttime raid.

Asked why he decided to help, Mohammed said he simply couldn't watch the mistreatment of a fellow human being without taking action.

"A person is a human being regardless of nationality," he told the Post. "Believe me, I love Americans."

Mohammed, talked to the newspapers after he, his wife and daughter were taken to a U.S. military camp in the Iraqi desert. They were to be flown later to a refugee center in Umm Qasr, Iraq's deepwater Persian Gulf port. He withheld his last name to protect his family.

Mohammed told the newspapers he acted will full knowledge of the risks.

"I am afraid not for me," he said. "I am afraid about my daughter and my wife. ... Because I love much."

Marines said Mohammed's story gave them courage.

"He's sort of an inspiration to all of us," Lt. Col. Rick Long told the Post.

Lynch was flown Wednesday to a U.S. air base in Landstuhl, Germany, where she underwent back surgery at a military hospital. She was said also to have suffered fractures in both legs and a broken arm.

 

 

Capt. Denise Beaumont, left, from Searsy, Arkansas, comforts a wounded Iraqi civilian Thursday, April 3, 2003 at the U. S. Army 86th Combat Support Hospital located at Tallil Air Base in southern Iraq.

 

An M1A1 Abrams tank with the US Army's 3rd Battalion, 69th Regiment Armor Task Force, Task Force 3-69, provides cover as the Army takes control of the Saddam International Airport near Baghdad, Friday, April 4, 2003.

 

U.S. Marines from the 15th Expeditionary Unit make their way in the desert near the southern city of Nasiriyah, Iraq on Sunday, March 30, 2003.

 

Private Jimmy Barron attracts the attention of local children as he patrols with Britain's C Company of the Black Watch in Zubayr, south of Basra in southern Iraq, Wednesday, April 2, 2003. Barron and other members of the Black Watch have switched from wearing helmets to the traditional tam-o'-shanter cap because the town is considered to be friendlier and less dangerous than other areas.

 

A man holds flowers and a program from the funeral of Marine Sgt. Kendall Waters-Bey after leaving St. Matthews Catholic Church in Baltimore Friday, April 4, 2003. Sgt. Waters-Bey was killed in a helicopter crash and was one of the first casualties in the war with Iraq.

 

Secondary explosions from a destroyed Iraqi SA-6 surface to air missile shoot across the sky on the outskirts of Karbala, Iraq, Thursday, April 3, 2003. Missiles on board the SA-6 "cooked off" and ignited causing a large explosion which threw debris for hundreds of yards in every direction.

 

Medics with the U.S. Army's 3-69 Task Force tend to an injured Iraqi on the bank of the Euphrates River as the 3rd Battalion, 69th Regiment Armor Task Force crossed the river just south of Baghad Wednesday, April 2, 2003.

 

Archie Ortiz, junior vice commander for Native American Veterans of the Vietnam War, salutes a photo of Pfc. Lori Piestewa after placing a POW/MIA flag next to the display at Basha's in Tuba City, Ariz., Saturday, April 5, 2003. Piestewa's missing in action status was changed to killed in action after her body was found and identified along with seven other U. S. soldiers from the 507th Maintenance Company following a raid in Iraq.

 

A British soldier holds a catalogue of photographs of dead people, as coffin-sized boxes with bags containing human remains are lined-up in a warehouse at an abandoned Iraqi military base in Zubayr, southern Iraq, Saturday, April 5, 2003. British forces in southern Iraq said Saturday they had found an estimated 200 coffin-sized boxes containing hundreds of human remains along with a catalogue of photographs of the dead. Capt. Jack Kemp of the Royal Horse Artillery said "he believed the people had been dead for several years."