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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture |
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November 26th,
2004 - ‘Unusual Weapons’ Used in Fallujah News article by Inter Press Service |
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‘Unusual Weapons’ Used in
Fallujah By Dahr Jamail Inter Press Service November 26, 2004 Baghdad - The U.S. military has
used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in
Fallujah, eyewitnesses report. ”Poisonous gases have been
used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS.
”They used everything - tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has
been bombed to the ground.” Hammad is from the Julan
district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other
residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons. ”They used these weird bombs
that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,” Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee
from the Julan area told IPS. ”Then small pieces fall from the air with long
tails of smoke behind them.” He said pieces of these
bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was
thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause
such effects. ”People suffered so much from these,” he said. Macabre accounts of killing
of civilians are emerging through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining
around Fallujah. ”Doctors in Fallujah are
reporting to me that there are patients in the hospital there who were forced
out by the Americans,” said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at
a hospital in Baghdad. ”Some doctors there told me they had a major operation
going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die.” Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who
escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many
atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the city. ”I watched them roll over
wounded people in the street with tanks,” he said. ”This happened so many
times.” Abdul Razaq Ismail who
escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said soldiers had used tanks to pull
bodies to the soccer stadium to be buried. ”I saw dead bodies on the ground
and nobody could bury them because of the American snipers,” he said. ”The
Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah.” Abu Hammad said he saw people
attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. ”The Americans shot
them with rifles from the shore,” he said. ”Even if some of them were holding
a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters,
they were all shot..” Hammad said he had seen
elderly women carrying white flags shot by U.S. soldiers. ”Even the wounded
people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to
one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went
there carrying white flags were killed.” Another Fallujah resident
Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot as they held up makeshift white
flags. ”They shot women and old men in the streets,” he said. ”Then they shot
anyone who tried to get their bodies ... Fallujah is suffering too much, it
is almost gone now.” Refugees had moved to
another kind of misery now, he said. ”It's a disaster living here at this
camp,” Khalil said. ”We are living like dogs and the kids do not have enough
clothes.” Spokesman for the Iraqi Red
Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told IPS that none of their relief
teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and that the military had said it would
be at least two more weeks before any refugees would be allowed back into the
city. ”There is still heavy
fighting in Fallujah,” said Salim. ”And the Americans won't let us in so we
can help people.” In many camps around
Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are living without enough food,
clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate there are at least 15,000
refugee families in temporary shelters outside Fallujah. External link: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/iraq/000137.php |