NotJihad...

I came to fight invaders.  To defend my country.

Today I killed a young man; an American.  I shot him in the neck from three hundred meters.  I did not see him fall, but I knew I had killed him.  I saw his motionless body, a deeper shadow in the shadows of the tombs.  This is a place of death.  Still it did not seem right.

His fellows came forward.  I moved to another position, and watched them carefully.  I expected them to fire on me, or my companions.  But they did not.  I realized they had come to recover the body of the man I killed.

For respect, I held my fire.

They carried their dead friend away toward the street where I knew their vehicles were waiting.  I was sorry for myself that I had killed him.  I was sorry for the others, for losing their friend.  I was sorry for his mother; I know the pain a mother suffers when her son is killed.  But I was not sorry for him.  He died fighting for his country, for something he believed in, and for his comrades.

Truly there is no better way to die.  This I believe.  He is with Allah.  He will have all honor and reward.  We who fight for our nations and our beliefs are all brothers.  Though we must kill each other, we must also respect each other, for in our passion and our fury we are the same.

Perhaps one day soon I too will go to Allah.  Then I shall meet this young American.  I will tell him, I am sorry that I killed him, but I am not sorry to count him as a brother.