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October 12th,
2007 - Iraq Sends Mixed Messages on U.S. Raid |
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Iraq Sends Mixed Messages on
U.S. Raid By Kim Gamel Associated Press Writer October 12, 2007 Iraq's Shiite-dominated
government said the killings of 15 women and children in a U.S. attack on a
Sunni area were a "sorrowful matter," but emphasized Friday that
civilian deaths are unavoidable in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. The comments by government
spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh appeared to be tacit approval of Thursday's raid
northwest of Baghdad. They suggested the Iraqi government holds the American
military to a different standard when it comes to assaults against suspected
Sunni insurgents. Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki's government has complained loudly to U.S. military officials when
Shiite civilians have been killed in American attacks against Mahdi Army
militants, and tensions have been high over recent shootings of Iraqi
civilians by private security contractors protecting U.S.-government-funded
work. On Friday, al-Dabbagh said
the area targeted by American forces was a known base for insurgents, whom he
accused of hiding among civilians. "The issue of 15
civilian victims is a sorrowful matter, but confronting al-Qaida is an
essential and vital issue," he told The Associated Press in a telephone
interview. "They shouldn't have any place among the civilians." "We are in a war
against those diabolical and wicked groups; therefore during military
operations there might be innocents killed," he added. "The victims
are an unavoidable matter in fighting al-Qaida." The assault targeting senior
al-Qaida in Iraq leaders near Lake Tharthar, about 50 miles northwest of the
capital, inflicted one of the heaviest civilian death tolls in the offensive
against the terror network in recent months. The military said 19 suspected
insurgents, six women and nine children died, and two suspected insurgents,
one woman and three children were wounded. U.S. spokesman Rear Adm.
Greg Smith said the military would examine surveillance footage and interview
troops to confirm the sequence of events. "We certainly will do a very
thorough investigation to ensure the force used was appropriate," he said. "We do what we can to
ensure that we minimize to the greatest extent possible the loss of life of
civilians," Smith said. "But in instances where your forces are
being fired upon, you're going to use all necessary means to reduce that
threat." He accused al-Qaida fighters of using their relatives and other
innocent people to shield themselves. The military said ground
troops backed by attack aircraft acted on intelligence reports about an
al-Qaida meeting at an initial location near the man-made lake, which straddles
the volatile Sunni Anbar and Salahuddin provinces. Four insurgents were
killed in that strike, but several suspects fled to another location, the
military said. American troops pursuing
them faced small-arms fire, and a subsequent airstrike caused most of the
casualties. Tensions are running high in
Iraq over the killings of civilians by U.S. forces and private security
guards. A representative of the
country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged the
parliament to take up the issue of unjustified killings of Iraqi civilians,
especially by the armed teams from mostly Western companies. "Iraqi blood has become
the cheapest thing in Iraq," Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai said in a
Friday sermon in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. "So we demand the
Iraqi parliament meet to discuss the devaluing of Iraqi blood and souls by
these companies." Al-Qaida in Iraq had
announced stepped-up attacks during Ramadan, and there has been a spike in
car bombings and other attacks usually blamed on the terror network. In Friday's deadliest
attack, a parked car bomb exploded near a police patrol in a central Baghdad
shopping district, killing four people, including two policemen, a police
officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to release the information. Separately, a bomb planted
among toys in a cart left near a children's playground in the religiously
mixed city of Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, killed two people and
wounded 17, police Col. Abbas Mohammed said. One of the dead was a child. Associated Press writers
Yahya Barazanji in Kirkuk and Mazin Yahya in Baghdad contributed to this
report. Copyright © 2007 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. External link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071012/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq |