March 27, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 23, 1424

AS-SALIYAH, Qatar, March 26: A senior US commander voiced exasperation here Wednesday with the guerilla warfare tactics practised thus far by Iraqi forces against invading US and British troops and accused them of not playing by the rules.

“The regime has shown its true colours in the recent days of fighting,” Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told a press briefing at the US military’s forward command center.

Citing examples of what he said was subterfuge by Iraqi forces and their reported practice of fighting behind human shields, Brooks charged his adversaries with “disregard for laws of armed conflict.”

Donning US uniforms to fool US and British soldiers was “akin ... to the behaviour of global terrorists,” he said.

“We’ve seen people wearing US uniforms strapped with explosives, we’ve seen irregulars marching people in the street in front of them as they fire on coalition forces, we’ve seen buses following tank columns empty out and have people with weapons engaging in combat,” Brooks complained.

“We’ve seen a number of things that tell us that what meets the eye always is not necessarily what is true.”

Brooks also had no substantive comment on an Iraqi report that 14 Iraqis were killed and some 30 injured when at least two US or British missiles struck a Baghdad residential area Wednesday.

But he appeared to suggest — without elaborating — that someone else may have been responsible.—AFP