The Americans walked a few blocks to another abandoned home where more members of the Concerned Local Nationals were found.
Austin asked for the man he had been told led the group, but a thin man wearing a red "Seattle Sport Club" sweatsuit said he was the group's actual leader and wanted Austin to leave.
"He said he doesn't want to work with the U.S. He hates the U.S.," the American military interpreter said. "He said the neighbors say, 'You guys don't work for Iraq, you work for the U.S.'
"If he's not going to go outside and tell me where I can find these IEDs," Austin said, "what's the point of me letting him maintain AK-47s here? What are we doing if he isn't going to dig?"
Finally, one of the militia members agreed to wear a disguise and point to the place where the Americans could find an IED.
The soldiers laid some explosives on top of the spot in the road and took cover inside the home of a 78-year-old man who said he had been abandoned by his 12 children when they left for safer parts of Iraq. The old man said he had no food and wanted to die.
Outside, the explosives laid by the soldiers blew up, but there was no IED underneath.
garrett.therolf@latimes.com
