.GIs at Ishaqi Cleared; Haditha Probe Open
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in a March raid in a village north of Baghdad has cleared the troops of misconduct, two defense officials said Friday, despite dramatic video footage of slain children.
The investigation of the March 15 attack in the village of Ishaqi concluded that the U.S. troops followed normal procedures in raising the level of force as they came under attack upon approaching a building where they believed an al-Qaida terrorist was hiding, two defense officials said.
The probe was part of U.S. investigations into possible misconduct by American troops in at least three separate areas.
Two investigations are examining reports of American troops killing two dozen unarmed civilians in the western town of Haditha last Nov. 19 as a revenge attack shortly after one of their own died in a roadside bombing. Also, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman could face murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man west of Baghdad.
The military said Friday it will cooperate with the Iraqi government in its own investigation of Haditha and other incidents of alleged wrongdoing by U.S. troops. "We're going to give them whatever assistance they need as a part of this investigation," said Army Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, the chief of staff for U.S. forces in Iraq.
Campbell's pledge came a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki upbraided the U.S. military over Haditha and accused U.S. troops of habitually attacking unarmed civilians.
Meanwhile, a lawyer representing families of Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by U.S. Marines in Haditha said three or four Marines carried out the shooting while 20 more waited outside.
The lawyer, Khaled Salem Rsayef, said Marines ordered four brothers inside a closet and shot them dead.
Rsayef said he witnessed U.S. troops responding to the bomb attack from his house. He said he lost several relatives in the alleged massacre, including a sister and her husband, an aunt, an uncle and several cousins. He and his brother, Salam Salem Rsayef, spoke to The Associated Press from the Euphrates River town of 90,000 late Thursday and Friday.
Despite the Iraqi government's insistence of cooperation between the U.S. and Iraqi investigations, the Rsayefs said they and other victims' families turned down a request by U.S. military investigators several months ago to exhume the victims' bodies for forensic tests.
"No way we can ever agree to that," Salam Salem Rsayef said. Under Islamic teachings, exhuming bodies is prohibited, but is allowed on case-by-case basis, sometime after a fatwa, or an edict, from a senior cleric allowing it to proceed.
As relatives and witnesses, the Rsayef brothers met at least four times with U.S. military investigators looking into the killings. The meetings, they said, began in February and were held at Samarra General Hospital. The time and venue of each meeting were relayed in advance to the relatives by doctors at the hospital, they said.
The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday, the two brothers said, suggesting that the U.S. investigations into the 6-month-old affair are not finished.
Khaled Salam Rsayef identified the four brothers shot and killed in a closet as Jamal Ayed Ahmed, 41, a car dealer; Chassib Ayed Ahmed, 27, a traffic policeman; Marwan Ayed Ahmed, 28, an engineer; and Kahtan Ayed Ahmed, 24, a local government employee. He said the U.S. military did not give compensation payments to their families because the brothers were believed to be insurgents.
Rsayef said his account of what happened was based on his personal observations from the rooftop of his home and windows. His house is only several dozen yards away from the three homes raided by Marines. The killings, which he did not witness in person, were recounted to him and other members of his family the following day by survivors.
He said his own home shook violently when the roadside bomb went off at 7:15 a.m. and that intermittent gunfire lasted for about two hours. He could not go out of his house to see for himself, but managed to steal quick glances from his roof and from behind windows.
"About 5 p.m. I emerged with my family carrying white flags," he said. "We wanted to move away from the area fearing that shooting could resume."
More than 4,000 Iraqis - many of them civilians - have been killed in war-related violence this year, including at least 936 in May alone, according to an AP count, as civilians, not Iraqi security forces, are increasingly the casualties of violence.
Much of the violence is the result of Iraqi attacks, but human rights activists estimate that hundreds also have died when they were caught up in fighting with U.S. forces - sometimes as they are driving too fast around a checkpoint.
A ground force conducted the March 15 nighttime raid in the village of Ishaqi, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. After being fired upon from the targeted building, the soldiers pulled back and called in airstrikes by an Air Force AC-130 gunship, which attacked and collapsed the building, the defense officials said.
Local Iraqis said there were 11 dead, and contended that they were killed by U.S. troops before the house was leveled.
One defense official said the investigation into the circumstances of the Ishaqi attack found that four people in the building were killed by U.S. forces, including two women and a child. The main target of the attack, said by U.S. intelligence to be an al-Qaida figure, ran from the building but was later captured, the official said.
The bloody aftermath of the attack was captured at the time in video footage shot by an AP Television News cameraman. The footage became the focus of attention Friday in the wake of the Iraqi prime minister's condemnation of U.S. behavior.
The footage shows at least one adult male and four of the children with deep wounds to the head that could have been caused by bullets or shrapnel. One child has an obvious entry wound to the side and the inside of the walls left standing were pocked with bullet holes. A voice on the tape said there were clear bullet wounds in two people.
Although it has been known that U.S. air power was involved in the assault on the building in Ishaqi, it was not previously reported that there was an AC-130 gunship, a devastating weapon capable of operating at night and pummeling its target with side-firing guns, including a 105mm cannon. The gunship is flown by Air Force Special Operations crews.
In the separate case of the shooting death of the Iraqi man in April, military prosecutors plan to file the charges against the seven servicemen, who are being held in solitary confinement at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Marine Corps base, said Jeremiah Sullivan III, who represents one of the men.
The Iraqi man reportedly was dragged from his home west of Baghdad and shot. The Los Angeles Times and NBC News said troops may have planted an AK-47 and a shovel near the body to make it appear as if the man was an insurgent burying a roadside bomb. Neither suggested a possible motive.
MyWay
The investigation of the March 15 attack in the village of Ishaqi concluded that the U.S. troops followed normal procedures in raising the level of force as they came under attack upon approaching a building where they believed an al-Qaida terrorist was hiding, two defense officials said.
The probe was part of U.S. investigations into possible misconduct by American troops in at least three separate areas.
Two investigations are examining reports of American troops killing two dozen unarmed civilians in the western town of Haditha last Nov. 19 as a revenge attack shortly after one of their own died in a roadside bombing. Also, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman could face murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man west of Baghdad.
The military said Friday it will cooperate with the Iraqi government in its own investigation of Haditha and other incidents of alleged wrongdoing by U.S. troops. "We're going to give them whatever assistance they need as a part of this investigation," said Army Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, the chief of staff for U.S. forces in Iraq.
Campbell's pledge came a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki upbraided the U.S. military over Haditha and accused U.S. troops of habitually attacking unarmed civilians.
Meanwhile, a lawyer representing families of Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by U.S. Marines in Haditha said three or four Marines carried out the shooting while 20 more waited outside.
The lawyer, Khaled Salem Rsayef, said Marines ordered four brothers inside a closet and shot them dead.
Rsayef said he witnessed U.S. troops responding to the bomb attack from his house. He said he lost several relatives in the alleged massacre, including a sister and her husband, an aunt, an uncle and several cousins. He and his brother, Salam Salem Rsayef, spoke to The Associated Press from the Euphrates River town of 90,000 late Thursday and Friday.
Despite the Iraqi government's insistence of cooperation between the U.S. and Iraqi investigations, the Rsayefs said they and other victims' families turned down a request by U.S. military investigators several months ago to exhume the victims' bodies for forensic tests.
"No way we can ever agree to that," Salam Salem Rsayef said. Under Islamic teachings, exhuming bodies is prohibited, but is allowed on case-by-case basis, sometime after a fatwa, or an edict, from a senior cleric allowing it to proceed.
As relatives and witnesses, the Rsayef brothers met at least four times with U.S. military investigators looking into the killings. The meetings, they said, began in February and were held at Samarra General Hospital. The time and venue of each meeting were relayed in advance to the relatives by doctors at the hospital, they said.
The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday, the two brothers said, suggesting that the U.S. investigations into the 6-month-old affair are not finished.
Khaled Salam Rsayef identified the four brothers shot and killed in a closet as Jamal Ayed Ahmed, 41, a car dealer; Chassib Ayed Ahmed, 27, a traffic policeman; Marwan Ayed Ahmed, 28, an engineer; and Kahtan Ayed Ahmed, 24, a local government employee. He said the U.S. military did not give compensation payments to their families because the brothers were believed to be insurgents.
Rsayef said his account of what happened was based on his personal observations from the rooftop of his home and windows. His house is only several dozen yards away from the three homes raided by Marines. The killings, which he did not witness in person, were recounted to him and other members of his family the following day by survivors.
He said his own home shook violently when the roadside bomb went off at 7:15 a.m. and that intermittent gunfire lasted for about two hours. He could not go out of his house to see for himself, but managed to steal quick glances from his roof and from behind windows.
"About 5 p.m. I emerged with my family carrying white flags," he said. "We wanted to move away from the area fearing that shooting could resume."
More than 4,000 Iraqis - many of them civilians - have been killed in war-related violence this year, including at least 936 in May alone, according to an AP count, as civilians, not Iraqi security forces, are increasingly the casualties of violence.
Much of the violence is the result of Iraqi attacks, but human rights activists estimate that hundreds also have died when they were caught up in fighting with U.S. forces - sometimes as they are driving too fast around a checkpoint.
A ground force conducted the March 15 nighttime raid in the village of Ishaqi, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. After being fired upon from the targeted building, the soldiers pulled back and called in airstrikes by an Air Force AC-130 gunship, which attacked and collapsed the building, the defense officials said.
Local Iraqis said there were 11 dead, and contended that they were killed by U.S. troops before the house was leveled.
One defense official said the investigation into the circumstances of the Ishaqi attack found that four people in the building were killed by U.S. forces, including two women and a child. The main target of the attack, said by U.S. intelligence to be an al-Qaida figure, ran from the building but was later captured, the official said.
The bloody aftermath of the attack was captured at the time in video footage shot by an AP Television News cameraman. The footage became the focus of attention Friday in the wake of the Iraqi prime minister's condemnation of U.S. behavior.
The footage shows at least one adult male and four of the children with deep wounds to the head that could have been caused by bullets or shrapnel. One child has an obvious entry wound to the side and the inside of the walls left standing were pocked with bullet holes. A voice on the tape said there were clear bullet wounds in two people.
Although it has been known that U.S. air power was involved in the assault on the building in Ishaqi, it was not previously reported that there was an AC-130 gunship, a devastating weapon capable of operating at night and pummeling its target with side-firing guns, including a 105mm cannon. The gunship is flown by Air Force Special Operations crews.
In the separate case of the shooting death of the Iraqi man in April, military prosecutors plan to file the charges against the seven servicemen, who are being held in solitary confinement at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Marine Corps base, said Jeremiah Sullivan III, who represents one of the men.
The Iraqi man reportedly was dragged from his home west of Baghdad and shot. The Los Angeles Times and NBC News said troops may have planted an AK-47 and a shovel near the body to make it appear as if the man was an insurgent burying a roadside bomb. Neither suggested a possible motive.
MyWay
posted by madtom at 5:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home