.Contractors in combat: Firefight from a rooftop in Iraq
A video circulating on the Internet leaves little doubt that contractors do get caught up in combat.
Running just under seven minutes, it has appeared on several Web sites under such titles as “Mercenary Sniper in Iraq” and “Sniper and Firefight Video.”
The video shows a team of Blackwater USA contractors firing from a rooftop in Najaf, Iraq, on April 4, 2004 – four days after four other Blackwater men were killed and their bodies mutilated in an ambush in Fallujah.
Chris Taylor, a vice president at Blackwater, said the video was not authorized by the company, but he confirmed that it is authentic and involved Blackwater personnel.
Taylor said the men, under contract to protect the headquarters of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, repelled an attack by 300 to 400 insurgents during a period of about 18 hours. Blackwater sent in helicopters to resupply the team with ammunition and ferry out a wounded U.S. Marine.
The video opens with footage shot from a helicopter circling as another helicopter drops in ammo to the Blackwater team on a rooftop. The remaining footage is shot from the rooftop, focusing mostly on a single gunman crouched behind a ledge, wearing a backward ball cap, sunglasses and orange earplugs, coolly firing an M-4 assault rifle with a telescopic sight.
The gunman reloads twice during the video. Toward the end he exclaims, “It’s like a (expletive) turkey shoot.”
The wounded Marine evacuated by Blackwater was Norfolk-based Lonnie Young. Out of the service now and living in Kentucky, Young says he has seen the video and recognizes the faces in it.
Young says the Americans took up positions on two adjoining rooftops. He was on the building across from where the video was shot, but said the scene was much the same on his rooftop, where he was shot in the shoulder.
“I was up there within 30 seconds of the first incoming,” Young said, “and Blackwater was already there – binoculars out, weapons locked on, picking out targets.”
As the only uniform on his rooftop, Young said, his first reaction was to start barking orders.
“But I realized real quick that these guys knew what they were doing. So, instead of telling them what to do, I started working with them.” Video
Pilot
Running just under seven minutes, it has appeared on several Web sites under such titles as “Mercenary Sniper in Iraq” and “Sniper and Firefight Video.”
The video shows a team of Blackwater USA contractors firing from a rooftop in Najaf, Iraq, on April 4, 2004 – four days after four other Blackwater men were killed and their bodies mutilated in an ambush in Fallujah.
Chris Taylor, a vice president at Blackwater, said the video was not authorized by the company, but he confirmed that it is authentic and involved Blackwater personnel.
Taylor said the men, under contract to protect the headquarters of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, repelled an attack by 300 to 400 insurgents during a period of about 18 hours. Blackwater sent in helicopters to resupply the team with ammunition and ferry out a wounded U.S. Marine.
The video opens with footage shot from a helicopter circling as another helicopter drops in ammo to the Blackwater team on a rooftop. The remaining footage is shot from the rooftop, focusing mostly on a single gunman crouched behind a ledge, wearing a backward ball cap, sunglasses and orange earplugs, coolly firing an M-4 assault rifle with a telescopic sight.
The gunman reloads twice during the video. Toward the end he exclaims, “It’s like a (expletive) turkey shoot.”
The wounded Marine evacuated by Blackwater was Norfolk-based Lonnie Young. Out of the service now and living in Kentucky, Young says he has seen the video and recognizes the faces in it.
Young says the Americans took up positions on two adjoining rooftops. He was on the building across from where the video was shot, but said the scene was much the same on his rooftop, where he was shot in the shoulder.
“I was up there within 30 seconds of the first incoming,” Young said, “and Blackwater was already there – binoculars out, weapons locked on, picking out targets.”
As the only uniform on his rooftop, Young said, his first reaction was to start barking orders.
“But I realized real quick that these guys knew what they were doing. So, instead of telling them what to do, I started working with them.” Video
Pilot
posted by madtom at 9:28 PM
1 Comments:
Why do you even bother stating what the weapon was? You don't have a clue. It as close to an M4 as a rock is to a hand grenade.
If you don't know what the weapon is, just say, "a rifle" or a "scoped rifle."
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