BBC: New 'Iraq massacre' tape emerges (Town of Ishaqi)

[kpete]

New 'Iraq massacre' tape emerges

The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.

The video appears to challenge the US military's account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.

The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people.

A spokesman for US forces in Iraq told the BBC an inquiry was under way.

The new evidence comes in the wake of the alleged massacre in Haditha, where US marines are suspected of massacring up to 24 Iraqi civilians in November 2005.

more at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5039420.stm

[BooScout]

1. Oh there's a lot more....

I just watched it. Sickening.

[benburch]

3. I don't see a link to the video on that story?

Did I miss it?

[BooScout]

21. A link is on the BBC News Home page. n/t

[originalpckelly]

2. HOLY CRAP ANOTHER FUCKING HADITHA?!!!!!?

Damn it this fucking awful!!!!!

[Grebrook]

4. Well, a second one probably won't be reported in the media

the media will simply shrug and say "seen one, seen em all"

[BillZBubb]

6. They'll say the public isn't interested...

and they will probably be right. The sheeple don't want to know what they have foisted on the world.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. the Iraqi police report:

At 230 of 15/3/2006, according to the telegram (report) of the Ishaqi police directorate, American forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf situated in the Abu Sifa village of the Ishaqi district. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people, including 5 children, 4 women and 2 men, then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals (map coordinates 098702).

They were:

Turkiya Muhammed Ali, 75 years
Faiza Harat Khalaf, 30 years
Faiz Harat Khalaf, 28 years
Um Ahmad, 23 years
Sumaya Abdulrazak, 22 years
Aziz Khalil Jarmoot, 22 years
Hawra Harat Khalaf, 5 years
Asma Yousef Maruf, 5 years
Osama Yousef Maruf, 3 years
Aisha Harat Khalaf, 3 years
Husam Harat Khalaf, 6 months

(Signed)

Staff Colonel Fadhil Muhammed Khalaf
Assistant Chief of the Joint Coordination Center

from here

[originalpckelly]

8. These ones were probably the most dangerous:

Turkiya Muhammed Ali, 75 years
Hawra Harat Khalaf, 5 years
Asma Yousef Maruf, 5 years
Osama Yousef Maruf, 3 years
Aisha Harat Khalaf, 3 years
Husam Harat Khalaf, 6 months <-This one was probably the leader of the group. How the fuck can you kill a six month baby and live with yourself? :cry:

[BooScout]

7. Does anyone not pay attention? JFC people...this has been..

....happening all along! It just pisses me off that people think this is just happening now....and if I hear one more excuse for troops doing this I am going to explode.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0147659.htm

....March 15, 2006 - Police say six adults and five children shot dead in U.S. raid on home in Ishaqi, north of Baghdad. The 101st Airborne Division says two women and a child died during arrest of al Qaeda militant. Investigation was announced but U.S. spokesmen were this week unable to say who conducting it.

March 18 - Iraqi police say U.S. soldiers shot dead a 13-year-old boy and his parents in their home in the Sunni town of Dhuluiya, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad, saying they were among eight people killed after a U.S. patrol was ambushed. The 101st Airborne says troops killed seven "attacking terrorists".

April 26 - Iraqi man killed at Hamandiya, western Iraq. U.S. military says investigating. U.S. media reports say Marines were questioned about whether they took man from home and shot him.

May 4 - 101st Airborne Division says troops kill two men and a woman after being fired on from house in Samarra, adding the dead were involved in attack. Police name two dead women aged 60 and 20 and a mentally handicapped man and say they were unarmed. Relatives tell Reuters troops fired on them in a room.

May 30 - U.S. forces shoot dead two women in a car near Samarra. Troops say driver ignored signs to stop. Relatives and police say one of dead women was pregnant and going to hospital.

[kpete]

9. I hear you BooScout

Loud and clear!

[mike_c]

10. yup-- this is apparently SOP and has been since the beginning....

It's not "a few bad apples" in Iraq, it's a toxic fucking orchard. This is what happens when you try to use a force like the U.S. military for prolonged garrison occupation, a mission without clear objectives that can only be sustained by jacking up the hyperviolence-- it's like the Roman legion without the living off the land.

[Karenina]

11. It HAS been SOP

since March '03.

The Iraqis know it.
The ROTW knows it.
The American soldiers know it.

[RagingInMiami]

13. The only reason it's coming out now

is that all the news agencies have already filled their pockets with the profits from this war. Now they can get down to the business of reporting the news truthfully.

[adigal]

31. I think it is coming out because Gonzales said last week

that he thinks they can use the espionage act against journalists.

They are going to fix Bush's wagon now.

[BooScout]

14. Yea but does DU know it?

Seriously. All I have seen around here since the news of Haditha broke was excuse upon excuse for the poor soldiers reaching their breaking point....and then thrown in gratis is the 'isolated incidences' & 'few bad apples' cliches. I for one am sick of it.

[malaise]

17. You are 100% correct n/t

[gratuitous]

18. So he took a 2x4 and whacked the jackass between the eyes

"First," he said, "You have to get the jackass's attention."

Our country doesn't cotton very well to the notion that we could be the bad guys. “Freedom isn’t free” is this decade’s version of “Love it or leave it,” the Vietnam-era rallying cry of the reactionary right. The implication in both instances being that abhorring the atrocities committed by our troops is akin to treason or cowardice, and that by bringing these incidents up, we’re right at the brink of troops being spat on and called baby killers.

The implication is that the defenders of the atrocities are the cold-eyed realists, folks who see the world for what it is, and know that in a hostile and dangerous place, it’s better to be the killer than the killee. We’ll show those terrorists that we’re not afraid, by the Christ! Hand in hand with that implication is that the people who object to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, Kama Aido, or Haditha, are starry-eyed idealists, unwilling to face the harsh realities of the world, who don’t understand the bloodthirsty nature of the terrorists who seek to kill us.

Curiously, the self-styled realists are willfully blind to any responsibility for creating the violent rules of engagement, and they are the first to wonder and wail, “Why do they hate us?” when the oppressed hit back. And when we bring up these little incidents as examples of why someone might not like us very much, the reaction is as strong as it is predictable: You hate America, too! Love it or leave it! Freedom isn’t free!

But the plain fact is that we who abhor these atrocities by our troops do indeed love our country, and we’d love to see it do the right thing: Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with other nations.

[tinfoil tiaras]

25. What sick fucker would do something like this?!?!

:cry: Horrible, absolutely horrible.

and I thought the Freepers were pro-life. Oh, killing a pregnant woman and a 6 month old baby is so pro-life... :sarcasm:

"pro-life" my ass. :mad:

[The_Casual_Observer]

12. Could an illegitimate war for conquest turn out any other way?

[motocicleta]

24. could a war of any kind turn out any other way? eom

[Preening Fop]

15. Any Bets, Our Invasion Forces Regard Iraqis as Sub-Human?

:yoiks:

[malaise]

16. Please send this to KO

Fallujah, Haditha, Ishaqi and there are many more. To the Hague -this is Bush policy. Iraqis don't count. All that matters is the Bush agenda.

[IndyOp]

19. "Children of Abraham" a flash presentation of events at Ishaqi (Abu Sifa)

WARNING! Photos that the BBC said were too graphic to show are IN this Flash presentation:
Ishaqi - Abu Sifa - Children of Abraham - Death in the Desert

Here is a description of several of the photos:

We know from photographic evidence that the corpses of two men, four shrouded figures (women, according to the villagers), and five children - all of them apparently under the age of five, one as young as seven months, were pulled from the rubble of the house and laid out for burial beneath the bright, blank desert sky.

We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police said that an autopsy performed on the bodies found that "all the victims had gunshot wounds to the head." We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police said they found "spent American-issue cartridges in the rubble."

We know that two Iraqi police officials, Major Ali Ahmed and Colonel Farouq Hussein - both employed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government - told Reuteres that the 11 occupants of the house, including the five children, had been bound and shot in the head before the house was blown up.

We know from the photographs that one child, the youngest, the baby, has a graping wound in his forehead. We can see that one other child, a girl with a pink ribbon in her hair, is lying on her side and has blood oozing from the back of her head. The faces of the other children are turned upwards toward the sun; if they were shot, they were shot in the back of the head and their wounds are not evident. But we can see that their bodies, though covered with dust from the rubble are otherwise whole; they were evidently not crushed in the collapse of the house. They died in some other fashion.

We know from the photographs that two of the children - two girls, still in their pajamas - are lying with their dead eyes open. We can see that the light and tenderness that animate the eyes of every young child have vanished; nothing remains but the brute start of nothingness into nothingness. We can see that the other three children have their eyes closed; two are limp, but the baby has one stiffened arm raised to his cheek, as if trying to ward off the blow that gashed and pulped his face so terribly.

May God have mercy on our souls.

Please people. The problem isn't Haditha. The problem isn't Abu Sifa. The problem isn't Abu Ghraib. The problem isn't Iraq.

THE PROBLEM IS ONGOING USE of the US Military for control of markets and resources.

Real Shock & Awe: After 15 Years War, Sanctions 1,000,000 Iraqis Dead
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/IndyOp/4

Killing Hope: Over 250 Military & CIA Interventions Since World War II
http://www.killinghope.org/

Google Video:
What I've Learned About US Foreign Policy - The War Against the Third World
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3453261789658676035&pl=true

[renate]

20. the pink ribbon....

It felt like a punch in the gut to read about the pink ribbon in the little girl's hair.

[Canuckistanian]

22. It happened Mar. 15th. We caught it.

Americans raid house kill women and children.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=665087

US raid on home killed 11 family members (**CAUTION GRAPHIC PIC**)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=667138

Iraqi police report details civilians' deaths at hands of U.S. troops
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=704187

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. "Inquiry under way". Trans: "How can we cover this up?"

"Thorough investigation" Trans: "Let's make sure the shit flows downhill".

[DearAbby]

26. "JESUS WEPT"

...

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stop the bleeding]

28. and THESE are the ONES we KNOW about

God is weeping right now.

[Az_lefty]

29. Good Lord! Get these people out of there...

you can't put soldiers in such an awful situation tour after tour without this kind of thing happening. Not to take responsibility away from the soldiers involved, but this goes right to bush's doorstep. He is ultimately responsible for creating this mess and bears total responsibility.
:grr:

[peacebird]

30. Fallujah was Haditha on steroids. If we want to talk war crimes

just say Fallujah