I’m hoping to encounter some unconventional acts myself later on today.
Probably not the same thing, though.
I’m predicting that the citizenry of each city will join together to create giant composite creatures (Clive Barker’s story “In the Hills, the Cities”) and try to stomp on the advancing tanks.
The most likely “martyrdom operations” as of now would seem to be an attack by the “Ashbal Saddam” or “Saddam’s Lion Cubs”, who would appear to be the Iraqi version of the Hitler Youth… Tyranny Scouts, if you will.
There was a recent Scientific American article on the broader subject of child soldiers. I couldn’t find it on-line, but here’s a bibliography on the subject that includes the SciAm cite.
If true, it’s a particularly unpleasant can of worms for the Iraqis to open. Kids abused and indoctrinated into borderline sociopaths are even less likely to surrender than politically committed adults. Any that do surrender or are captured will likely require pretty extensive therapy to return to become socially functional and not an ongoing thorn in the side of the US and/or any democratic Iraqi government. I’m afraid I expect a lot of pre-teen carnage at the Airport tonight.
If your unconventional act is going to be launching the “Islamic Children’s Crusade” at the invaders, which has absolutely no chance of accomplishing anything militarily, but you hope will produce piles of dead kids to outrage the Arab world, perhaps you want to make sure your enemy is locked and loaded, and the cameras are rolling.
Every time I think they must have run out of repulsively cruel ploys (preganant woman riding shotgun in the car bomb, blackmailed car bomb drivers, holding soldiers’ families hostage), they manage to concoct something new. The tunnels under Baghdad must contain a secret chamber housing Satan’s Focus Group (“Okay everybody… I’m going to go around the table, and everybody has to say the most evil idea that comes into their head… Don’t worry that it’s stupid, or too evil… This is just to generate ideas…”)
Let’s bear in mind that Iraq ALSO says they’re winning the war. Unless you win wars these days by having half your country swallowed up in two weeks and your soldiers mowed down by the thousands, I think we can agree that Iraq is grasping at straws here. The claim may be just pissing in the wind.
It’s possible we’ll see more car bombs, but this hardly represents a war-winning strategy.