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E quem disse que mulher não sabe lutar?

Report: Captured Woman Put Up Fierce Fight
Thu April 3, 2003 08:10 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rescued U.S. soldier Jessica Lynch shot several Iraqi soldiers prior to her capture, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing U.S. officials.
The 19-year-old private first class continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her, one official told the newspaper.

"She was fighting to the death," the official was quoted as saying. "She did not want to be taken alive."

Lynch arrived in Germany early on Thursday for treatment at an American military hospital. She was held as a prisoner of war by Iraq for more than a week until U.S. special forces freed her on Tuesday.

Lynch, who has two broken legs and one broken arm, was with a U.S. Army maintenance convoy ambushed by Iraqi forces on March 23 in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.

One official said Lynch was stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position, the newspaper said.

U.S. defense officials said they were aware of the report, but could not immediately confirm the details of Lynch's capture.

Officials told the newspaper that the precise sequence of events was still being determined and further information would emerge as Lynch is debriefed.

The report said the information about Lynch's ordeal was based on battlefield intelligence that officials said came from monitored communications and from Iraqi sources whose reliability has yet to be assessed.

Lynch, from Palestine, West Virginia, arrived at the U.S. Ramstein air base in southwestern Germany early on Thursday aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane.

The special forces also recovered the bodies of two U.S. soldiers in the raid at the Saddam Hospital north of the Euphrates river which runs through Nassiriya.

Lynch was one of 15 soldiers listed missing, captured or killed when a 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company convoy made a wrong turn and came under attack from Iraqi tanks and fighters.

Five of the captives, but not Lynch, were shown on Iraqi television as well as the bloodied bodies of up to eight men, prompting President Bush to warn that anybody mistreating U.S. prisoners would be punished as "war criminals.

Lynch was reported to be in stable condition Thursday at the U.S. military hospital in Germany on Thursday.

"Her condition is stable. She is undergoing medical assessment and treatment," a spokeswoman for the Landstuhl Medical Facility said, declining to give any further details.

Lynch's relatives had no plans to come to Germany, she added.

She arrived at the U.S. Ramstein air base in southwestern Germany shortly after midnight on Thursday aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane.

Lynch lay motionless on a stretcher as a medical team in army fatigues carried her off the ramp of the plane and lifted her into a waiting ambulance, Reuters television pictures showed. One member of the team held up a drip for her.

The ambulance took her to the nearby Landstuhl Medical Facility, America's largest hospital outside the United States.