Interview with a Teenage Terrorist

Spiegel Online presents a portrait of a teeneage terrorist in Iraq.

So nice of them to give this punk a forum to spew his anti-American bilge.

It's men and youths like Diya Muhammad Hussein who are waging the war in Iraq. It is they who lay the mines and arrange the ambushes that kill soldiers and civilians. Diya calls himself a mujahedeen, a freedom fighter. The Iraqi government, the coalition troops, and the population exhausted by years of violence call him a terrorist. Diya's bomb could have killed several people, the US Marines say.

The young man has been held for the last 18 days in a police cell in Rawah, a small town in the Iraqi province of Al-Anbar. He was alone in the cell at first but it gradually filled up as Diya came clean and led the Iraqi police and US Marines to his accomplices and to their secret weapons stashes.

Six of them are now awaiting trial which will take place in their home town for the first time -- until recently, terrorism suspects have gone on trial in courts run by the US-led coalition. That task has now been handed over to local Iraqi judges as part of the handover of power to Iraqi authorities.

Diya had tried to detonate his mine again, the day after his first attempt, but when he saw that Iraqi police had joined the Marines on their patrol he decided not to push the button. He didn't want to kill his countrymen, he said.

Yes, he just wants to kill Americans.

Here's a kicker: He wants to grow up to become an Iraqi policeman.

Great.