Bombed Iraqi sheikh vows to fight on against Qaeda

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

BASSAM, Iraq (AFP) — The bomb planted under his car may have shredded his left leg and seared his flesh but it has not shattered Iraq tribal leader Zeydan Khalaf Mohammed's determination to rout Al-Qaeda from his area.

Nor, apparently, has it dampened the quick-to-smile 55-year-old Sunni sheikh's natural good humour.

"I'll fight them even if I have to crawl," Sheikh Zeydan said, grinning through excruciating pain while lying bandaged on his bed in rural Bassam village about 25 kilometres (16 miles) west of Baghdad.

The bomb exploded on February 3 while the grey-haired sheikh was driving along the rough dirt tracks next to a newly-replenished canal that is allowing his parched fields to turn green for the first time in four years.

At about 8:40 am he...