Bands of Army Deserters Terrorize Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Deserters from the Iraqi army have launched a reign of terror against their own country from the sanctuary of the swamps of southern Iraq, where they fled to avoid combat duty against Iran.

Diplomats say Iraqi troops have begun flushing out the marauding bands from their marshland retreat and that a “large number” of the heavily armed deserters have been killed or captured in recent sweeps.

Publicly, Iraqi officials will not discuss the deserters, but privately they admit the bands are staging holdups and kidnapings for money and ambushes for weapons.

Estimates of the number of deserters--fleeing from a war in which up to 1 million, according to estimates, have died since 1980--range from a few hundred to a few thousand.