Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 26, 1991 TAG: 9102260129
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: RUWEISHED, JORDAN LENGTH: Medium
The reports from refugees here at the Iraqi-Jordanian border lend credence to allegations made in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Monday by allied commanders that Iraqi soldiers were murdering, raping and mutilating hundreds of civilians in Kuwait City. The commanders described the emirate's besieged capital as a terrorized city shrouded in thick smoke from more than 500 burning oil wells.
Youssef Douba, a portly 21-year-old with a soft beard and round face, said his heart was heavy and full of pain because of the awful scenes he had witnessed back in Kuwait. He grimaced as he recalled how 12 of his male relatives had disappeared in the past two weeks, carted off by Iraqi soldiers.
The body of one of them, 18-year-old Mohammed, later was dumped at the family's doorstep.
"He was standing at the door of his house when they took him," recalled Douba, a Kuwaiti-born Syrian. "Two days later, he was found behind the door."
Another refugee, Salha Hussein Suleiman, 50, told how a Kuwaiti family had invited a group of Iraqi soldiers into their home for a sit-down meal and served them food laced with poison. One of the soldiers lived to tell his superiors, and Iraqi troops later burned the family's house to the ground, along with two neighboring houses.
She said Kuwaiti men seldom left their homes, and those captured after curfew never came back.
Suleiman, 50, a Palestinian-Jordanian who had lived in Kuwait for 30 years, left the emirate a week ago with her two daughters out of fear that American soldiers would come and "attack them."
"Death is everywhere. . . . He who does not die of war will die of hunger and thirst," said the small woman, who kept her head covered with a white scarf.
The commander of Saudi Arabia's forces in Operation Desert Storm, Gen. Khalid Bin Sultan, on Monday related stories he had heard of Iraqi atrocities and threatened to try Iraqis involved in such actions as war criminals before an international court of justice.
Khalid alleged that Iraqi soldiers were attacking Kuwaiti civilians with axes, raping women, and hanging mutilated body parts of murder victims in the streets of Kuwait City. The Saudi commander did not say where his information came from, but he said there were "horrible things going on" in the Kuwaiti capital.
Two hours before the allied land offensive began at dawn Sunday, Douba piled his belongings on top of his Chevrolet and drove via Iraq to the safety of Jordan.
He and other refugees described Kuwait Monday as a ravaged, looted battlefield. They said punishment was swift for Kuwaitis who tried to stand up to Iraqis or others taking advantage of the breakdown in civil order. Just before the land battle, they said, Iraqi soldiers swarmed all over the city.
Douba said a friend, Sami Raqm, 20, tried to stop young men, believed to be Palestinians, from stealing items from the building he lived in. "My friend told them not to do it. They went and told Iraqi intelligence in Kuwait about him. They took him away and tortured him," Youssef said.
"The torture was so excessive, he had to spend two days in hospital, and then he died," Douba added.
Douba, whose stories could not be independently confirmed, said the two men who had been freed told him they were tortured with "4-inch-long needles stuck under their fingernails."
by CNB