RIBAT, Iraq — After he served the Marines tea and sat them in his garden, the former Iraqi government official pulled up his shirt and showed his scars.
There were brown welts on his back where he had been flogged. There were small circular burns on his legs. He lifted his upper lip and revealed broken teeth. He held out his hands and displayed red lines where handcuffs had cut into his skin during eight days of captivity.
"The terrorists frighten and hurt the people here. They do checkpoints and patrols. Anyone they catch going to Al Qaim they will kill with a knife and throw him by the road," said the former official, who asked a Los Angeles Times reporter traveling with the Marines not to publish his name for fear that insurgents would kill him and his family.
"Frankly, I don't like the American occupation," he said. "But I prefer the American occupation to occupation by Al Qaeda."
A mission of more than 1,000 Marines, one of the larger deployments since the battle of Fallouja in November, has pressed this week through villages along the Euphrates River near the border with Syria looking for insurgent strongholds.
The Marines launched the campaign Sunday and were immediately engaged in sharp fighting. They have come across few insurgents since, but they have found plenty of people who complain about the guerrillas.
The Marines project a fearsome presence when they come into a town: convoys led by rumbling tanks, followed by armored amphibious vehicles bristling with guns. The Marines fan out, hustle people from their homes with stern commands and set off "controlled explosions" -- detonations of suspicious cars, possible land mines and improvised bombs.
Nearly every day, the Iraqis provide the Marines with information about foreign insurgents, who appear to play a prominent role in this part of western Iraq. The fighters have been pouring into the towns in greater numbers since U.S.-led forces seized Fallouja, which had been the capital of the insurgency.
Residents say insurgents threaten, beat and sometimes kill those who do not cooperate with them. They say the rebels take over their homes and cars, prevent them from seeking jobs with the Iraqi security forces, and endanger their towns by launching attacks against Americans from their backyards.
The residents say they do not like the U.S. occupation, and worry that speaking to Marines could bring the insurgents' wrath after the troops leave.
