Marines accused of Iraq massacre
SLAYINGS: The killing of 23 people following a roadside bomb in Haditha last year is being probed after reports surfaced that troops may have massacred civilians AP , BAGHDAD Wednesday, Mar 22, 2006,Page 1
Shortly after a roadside bomb killed a US Marine in a western Iraqi town last year, US forces went into nearby houses and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a three year-old-girl, residents said.
The story of the incident told on Monday was largely forgotten until last week when the military said it was investigating potential misconduct by Marines after a Nov. 19 insurgent attack in the town of Haditha, 220km north of Baghdad.
The allegations against the Marines were first brought forward by Time magazine, which said it had obtained a videotape two months ago taken by a Haditha journalism student inside the houses and local morgue.
A news release accompanying Time's account of events in its Monday edition mirrored what was said by residents who described what happened as "a massacre."
Khaled Ahmed Rsayef, whose brother and six other members of his family were killed in the incident, said the roadside bomb exploded at about 7:15am in al-Subhani neighborhood, heavily damaging a US Humvee.
At the time, a US military statement described it as an ambush on a joint US-Iraqi patrol that left 15 civilians, eight insurgents and a US Marine dead in the bombing and subsequent firefight. The statement said the 15 civilians were killed by the blast, a claim residents denied.
They said the only shooting done after the bomb exploded was by US forces.
Shooting at everyone
"US troops immediately cordoned off the area and raided two nearby houses, shooting at everyone inside," said Rsayef. "It was a massacre in every sense of the word."
Rsayef and another resident, former city councilman Imad Jawad Hamza, said the first house to be stormed was that of Abdul-Hamid Hassan Ali, which was very close to the scene of the bomb attack.
Ali, 76, whose left leg was amputated years ago because of diabetes, died instantly after being shot in the stomach and chest. His wife, Khamisa, 66, was shot in the back. Ali's son Jahid, 43, was hit in the head and chest. Son Walid, 37, was killed after a grenade was thrown into his room, and a third son, 28-year-old Rashid, died after he was shot in the head and chest.
Also among the dead were son Walid's wife, Asma, 32, who was shot in the head, and his son Abdullah, 4, who was shot in the chest, both Rsayef and Hamza said.
Walid's eight-year-old daughter Iman, and his six-year-old son Abdul-Rahman, were wounded and taken by US troops to Baghdad for treatment. The only person who escaped unharmed was Walid's five-month-old daughter, Asia.
The three surviving children now live with their maternal grandparents, Rsayef and Hamza said.
Rsayef said those killed in the second house were his brother Younis, 43, who was shot in the stomach and chest, the brother's wife, Aida, 40, who was shot in the neck and upper chest while still in bed where she was recuperating from bladder surgery. Their eight-year-old son Mohammed was shot in the right arm and bled to death, Rsayef said.
The only survivor from his brother's family was 15-year-old daughter Safa, who now lives with her grandparents, Rsayef said.
Brothers killed
The troops then shot and killed four brothers who were walking in the street, Rsayef and Hamza said, identifying them as the sons of Ayed Ahmed -- Marwan, Qahtan, Jamal and Chaseb.
US troops also shot dead five men who were in a car near the scene, Hamza and Rsayef said. They identified the five as Khaled Ayad al-Zawi and his brother Wajdi as well as Mohammed Battal Mahmoud, Akram Hamid Flayeh and Ahmad Fanni Mosleh.
It was not clear if those nine men were involved in the attack as the military statement said.
According to the US Defense Department, the Marine killed near Haditha that day was Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, 20. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force.
Walid al-Hadithi, chief physician at Haditha General Hospital, said that about midnight the day of the attack, two US humvees arrived at the hospital -- one carrying the bodies of the men and the other those of women and children.
"They told me the women and children were shot in their homes, and they added that the men were saboteurs," al-Hadithi said. He said he was given a total of 24 bodies. "All had bullet wounds."
Time said the available evidence did not provide conclusive proof that the Marines deliberately killed innocent civilians. The magazine, however, said its investigation showed that walls and ceilings in both houses were pockmarked with shrapnel and bullet holes as well as the telltale sprays of blood.
The video did not show any bullet holes on the outside of the houses to support the military claim the Marines had engaged in a gunbattle with alleged insurgents before storming the buildings.
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March 21, 2006
Iraqi Video Details End of Alleged Attack
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:58 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A videotape taken by an Iraqi shows the aftermath of an alleged attack by U.S. troops on civilians in their homes in a western town last November: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.
An Iraqi human rights group condemned the bloodshed in the town of Haditha, saying Tuesday that it could be ''one of dozens of incidents that were not revealed.''
The video, obtained by Time magazine and repeatedly aired by Arab televisions throughout the day, also showed bodies of women and children in plastic bags on the floor of what appeared to be a morgue. Men were seen standing in the middle of bodies, some of which were covered with blankets before being placed in a pickup truck.
The images were broadcast a day after residents of Haditha, 140 miles west of Baghdad, told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.
Last week, the U.S. military announced that a dozen Marines are under investigation for possible war crimes in the Nov. 19 incident, which left at least 23 Iraqis dead in addition to the Marine.
Talal al-Zuhairi, who heads the Baghdad Center for Human Rights, said his organization feared the troops, if convicted, will not be punished severely enough.
''This incident shows that the forces are committing, every now and then, operations that harm civilians,'' al-Zuhairi told The Associated Press.
''What we are worried about today ... (is that) a U.S. soldier may be discharged from the military or jailed for two years,'' said al-Zuhairi. ''This would in no way be sufficient punishment for wiping out a whole family or killing of a large number of people through an unjustifiable act.''
The allegations against the Marines were first brought forward by Time, though the magazine noted that the available evidence did not prove conclusively that the Marines deliberately killed innocents.
The magazine said it obtained the video, taken by a Haditha journalism student inside the houses and local morgue, two months ago.
A U.S. military statement in November had described the incident as an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol that left 15 civilians, eight insurgents and a U.S. Marine dead in the bombing and a subsequent firefight. That statement said the 15 civilians were killed by the blast, a claim residents denied.
The residents said the only shooting done after the bombing was by U.S. forces.
Al-Zuhairi called on the Iraqi government to investigate.
''We hope that this scandal will produce a reaction among Iraq's politicians. They should review their calculations in dealing with American troops and take into consideration that deadly mistakes are committed against Iraqis,'' al-Zuhairi said.
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US military investigates Iraq massacre claims
(Filed: 21/03/2006)
The US military has begun investigating claims published this week in Time magazine that American Marines killed 15 civilians in Iraq in November last year.
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| Bodies in a morgue after an incident in Haditha |
The alleged massacre is said to have taken place after a roadside bomb killed a Marine in the town of Haditha, west of Baghdad.
Residents in Haditha allege that American troops entered two family homes shortly after the attack and shot dead 15 members of the two families, including women and children.
"I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head," one child was quoted by Time as saying. "Then they killed my granny."
The US military yesterday acknowledged that a criminal inquiry had been launched into the incident, which is said to have taken place on November 19 last year.
Initial reports from the Marines indicated that the 15 Iraqis were also killed by the roadside bomb, but the US military later said that the people had indeed been shot, as witnesses had reported.
Time magazine said that it had shown a video of the corpses in Haditha to the military in January, prompting the revision.
Elsewhere in Iraq today, insurgents stormed the police headquarters in the town of Miqdadiya 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people.
