Word spread quickly: A Marine search dog had escaped and was roaming the streets attacking children. But the Marines didn't have any dogs in Haditha at the time.
Nevertheless, Marines found themselves having to quash yet another of the baseless rumors that often sweep this city of about 50,000 people, most of them Sunni Arabs wary of U.S. intentions in Iraq.
Rumors _ most of them maligning U.S. troops _ are a staple of life in the embattled, isolated cities of Anbar province, a region that is a center of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency and where telephones don't work and newspapers rarely appear.
Many residents are afraid to visit other parts of the country such as Baghdad, 140 miles to the southeast, for fear they'll run afoul of Shiite death squads. In their isolation, most people rely on Arab television networks such as Al-Jazeera for news of the outside world. For local news, the main medium is word of mouth.
No one is sure how the dog rumor started but soon terrified people were complaining to tribal leaders about a violent animal on the loose. The director of the city hospital even told reporters that seven children had been bitten.
The Americans must be to blame, many people concluded...
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