MAHMUDIYAH, Iraq — Two boys approached a U.S. soldier, pulled out a pistol and handed it over. They got a smile and some candy in return.
The gun was plastic, and the boys were following a local Iraqi military order to surrender all toy weapons — an effort to prevent children from being mistaken for insurgents.
With more children on the streets now that violence is down, American soldiers have a new mission in this former “triangle of death” city south of Baghdad: clearing all toy guns from the shopping area as they search for suspected insurgents and weapons caches.
The toy-gun ban shows how jittery the U.S. and Iraqi forces still are in a country where the enemy doesn’t wear a uniform.
The U.S. warned this year of a “disturbing trend” of al-Qaeda in Iraq recruiting and teaching young boys to kidnap and kill. The military released several videos seized from suspected al-Qaeda hide-outs in Diyala province north of the capital showing militants training children who appeared as young as 10.
From a distance, a soldier can’t tell whether the weapon is real and has to make a fast decision that could cost someone his or her life.
“This is one of the biggest issues that we’re encountering right now,” said Lt. Cameron Mays, 24, of Marion, Ky. “Right now it’s a gray area. You’re talking about a prime situation where a U.S. soldier has a split-second to make a decision about whether there’s a danger.”
The order to ban toy guns in Mahmudiyah and surrounding areas was handed down by Staff Maj. Gen. Ali Jassim al-Freiji, the commander of the Iraqi army’s 17th Division, which oversees the region.
Members of Delta Company, 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 63rd Armor Regiment, based at Fort Riley, Kan., have collected about 15 plastic weapons in the past two weeks, piling them on filing cabinets and hanging some on the walls in their office at the U.S. base at Mahmudiyah.
Nobody likes to see a child cry, and even battle-weary troops have a soft spot.
Mays stopped short during Wednesday’s market tour after getting a call on his radio about the latest discovery, then doubled back to the soldiers hovering around the toddler cradling the toy gun.
Iraqi company commander 1st Lt. Mouwaffak Mohammed al-Janabi talked his American counterpart into letting the boy keep the toy, saying his father had been killed by an insurgent.
“OK, but that’s the last time. We’ve got to support Gen. Ali’s orders,” Mays said.
