In solidarity with the people of Iraq struggling under foreign
occupation.
News from Iraq this week: March 17th to March 24th
`I would like to think
that, in maybe a year or two years time, it’s going to be
possible for some of you to come back here and see the changes
in this country that have arisen from what you’ve done today`
Probably today’s Iraq is not what
Tony Blair
had in mind when he uttered these words to troops in Basra in
May 2003. It seems that some of the troops are less keen to make
the return trip too, with the number of soldiers absconding from
the British Army
trebling
since the invasion of Iraq.
March 17th
11 members of an Iraqi family were killed in a U.S. raid,
police and witnesses said. A senior Iraqi police officer said
autopsies on the bodies, which included 5 children, showed each
had been shot in the head. Community leaders said they were
outraged at the killings and demanded an explanation from the
U.S. military. Television footage showed the bodies in the
Tikrit morgue, 5 children, 2 men and 4 women.
March 18th
Riverbend, a blogger from Baghdad writes: `It
has been 3 years since the beginning of the war that marked the
end of Iraq`s independence. 3 years of occupation and bloodshed.
Spring should be about renewal and rebirth. For Iraqis, spring
has been about reliving painful memories and preparing for
future disasters. In many ways, this year is like 2003 prior to
the war when we were stocking up on fuel, water, food and first
aid supplies and medications. I don’t think anyone imagined 3
years ago that things could be quite this bad today. …. I`m so
tired of it all, we`re all tired. 3 years and the electricity is
worse than ever. The security situation has gone from bad to
worse. The country feels like it’s on the brink of chaos once
more, but a pre-planned, pre-fabricated chaos being led by
religious militias and zealots…God protect us from the fourth
year `
March 19th
In Duluiyah US soldiers battled insurgents, the U.S.
military reported. The military reported 7 of the attackers
killed, and 2 U.S. soldiers wounded. However, a top police
official who saw the fighting, said U.S. troops also shot and
killed a family of 3 during house-to-house searches after the
firefight. `I saw corpses on the ground that I believe were of
armed men who had clashed with the American forces` said Ahmad
Hashem, `Then the American soldiers appeared and started
searching homes. They raided a house which was close to my home
and killed a man named Ahmad Khalaf Hussein, his wife and his
10-year-old son.`
March 20th
Residents gave new details about the shootings of
civilians in a Haditha, where the U.S. military is investigating
allegations of potential misconduct by American troops last
November. The residents say that shortly after a roadside bomb
killed a U.S. Marine, the troops went into nearby houses and
shot dead 15 members of 2 families, including a 3 year old girl.
According to the 9 year old Eman Waleed, when the Marines
entered the house, they were shouting in English: `First, they
went into my father`s room, where he was reading the Koran,` she
claims, `and we heard shots…I couldn`t see their faces very
well, only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them
shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head.
Then they killed my granny.` She claims the troops started
firing toward the corner of the room where she and her younger
brother Abdul Rahman, 8, were hiding; the other adults shielded
the children from the bullets but died in the process. Dr.
Wahid, director of the local hospital, says the Marines brought
24 bodies to his hospital around midnight, claiming the victims
had been killed by shrapnel from the roadside bomb, `but it was
obvious to us that there were no organs slashed by shrapnel…the
bullet wounds were very apparent. Most of the victims were shot
in the chest and the head, from close range.`
March 21st
Human rights groups have welcomed the inquiry by the US Navy
into the killing of civilians by US marines in Haditha. An order
issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority grants foreign
forces immunity from Iraqi law; they remain subject solely to
the jurisdiction of their own states. The UK and US have been
accused of limiting the number and power of criminal
prosecutions. In January, a US officer was punished with a
reprimand and a
$6,000
fine for killing a captured Iraqi general.
No prosecution was launched after a
US marine
was filmed shooting dead an incapacitated insurgent in a mosque
in Falluja in
November 2004. Several American veterans of the war in Iraq have
told the
BBC`s
Newsnight
programme that the marines` reaction to the roadside bomb attack
in Haditha was not an isolated incident. Specialist Michael
Blake, who served in Balad, said it was common practice to
`shoot up the landscape or anything that moved after an
explosion. Another veteran, Specialist Jody Casey, who was a
scout sniper in Baquba, said he had also seen innocent civilians
being killed. Bombs `go off and you just zap any farmer that's
close to you`, he said. Mr Casey said he did not take part in
any atrocities himself, but was advised to always carry a
shovel. He could then plant this on any civilian victims to make
it look as though they were digging roadside bombs.
March 22nd
Aid agencies say they have been prevented from entering
the city of Samarra where a major US and Iraqi military
operation is underway. This has left hundreds of families
without medical and food supplies. Nearly 1,200 families have
fled the city to Baghdad and are living in abandoned buildings
and makeshift camps. Dr Ibraheem Mahmoud, a clinician at the
emergency department of the local hospital, said that they have
received telephone calls from inside the city from residents who
spoke of dead bodies in streets and injured people without
assistance.
March 23rd
The entire adult male population of a village west of
Baghdad was rounded up in a major joint US-Iraqi operation
against insurgents that netted two `high value targets`. US
troops were airlifted in to lay a cordon around the village and
then went house-to-house, rounding up men and questioning them.
In one case more than 100 detainees were taken to a nearby
school. Detainees were handcuffed with plastic ties and after
being questioned, each man was marked with an `X` on the back of
their necks
March 24th
The United Nations called on Iraq’s Government to urgently
assert control over the security forces and all armed groups in
the war-torn country. `Allegations that death squads operate in
the country grew stronger following the discovery of a
suspicious group, acting within the structures of the Ministry
of Interior`, the report says.
Civilians reported killed by
military intervention in Iraq since invasion*:
Minimum: 33773
Maximum: 37895
Total number of US soldiers killed
in Iraq since invasion = 2320
Total number of US soldiers wounded
in Iraq since invasion= 17269
Total number of UK soldiers killed
in Iraq since invasion = 103
Total number of soldiers from other
nations killed since invasion = 104
*This
estimate is only of media reported deaths. A peer
reviewed epidemiological survey (Roberts
et al., The Lancet, Vol 364 Issue 9448 pp 1857 1864)
estimated that in the 18 months following the invasion 100, 000
excess deaths or more have occurred. Violence accounted for
most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces
accounted for most violent deaths. Criticisms of IBC methodology
can be found at
medialens
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