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September 19th,
2008 - US Raid Kills 7; Iraqis Say They Were Civilians News article by the Associated Press |
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US Raid Kills 7; Iraqis Say They
Were Civilians By Kim Gamel Associated Press September 19, 2008 Baghdad - U.S. troops
hunting for a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militant raided a house Friday and
killed seven people, including three women, drawing an angry protest from
Iraqi officials that all the victims were civilians. The U.S. military said the
raid in Adwar - a Sunni town 70 miles north of Baghdad and just south of
Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit - targeted an extremist responsible for
suicide attacks and roadside bombings. Neighbors and Iraqi
officials claimed all the dead were from a poor family that had been uprooted
by sectarian violence and had no links to the insurgency. Iraq's government
demanded that those responsible for the raid be punished. The dispute comes as the
United States and Iraq are negotiating a security agreement to replace the
U.N. mandate for foreign forces, which expires at year's end. Iraqi
negotiators have insisted on oversight of U.S. military operations and the
lifting of blanket immunity for American troops and security contractors. U.S. airstrikes and
conflicting claims about civilian deaths have been common throughout the war,
prompting public outrage and underscoring the challenges faced by American
forces fighting enemies who live among the population and don't wear
uniforms. Iraq's largest Sunni Arab
bloc denounced Friday's raid. "Even if, as they claim, a man attacked
them, that does not give them the excuse to target women and children,"
said Salim Abdullah al-Jubouri, a spokesman for the Iraqi Accordance Front. Dozens of people marched to
the site chanting "God is great" and "We condemn this inhumane
act." Abdullah Hussein Jibara,
deputy governor of Salahuddin province, said he did not accept the initial
explanation given by the Americans. "We think that this
tragedy could have been avoided if there were real coordination between U.S.
forces and Iraqi authorities," Jibara said. "We condemn this random
targeting of civilians, including women and children." The preacher of Adwar's main
mosque, Amir al-Douri, called on the Iraqi government to take legal measures
against the U.S. soldiers who carried out the raid and to demand a full
explanation from the U.S. Army. The toll in Friday's
operation was the deadliest inflicted by U.S. forces in weeks, amid a
relative calm due to security gains over the past year. Still, attacks
persist. On Monday, a suicide bomber blew herself up among police officers
northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people. In a separate attack that
day, car bombs in Baghdad killed 13. According to the U.S.
command, troops acting on tips surrounded a house believed to be holding the
suspected insurgent leader. They called for those inside to surrender during
an hourlong standoff, but opened fire when an armed man appeared in a
doorway, killing the main suspect, the command said. The troops then called in an
airstrike that killed three other suspected insurgents and three women, the
military said, adding that an Iraqi child was pulled from the rubble and
taken to a U.S. base for medical treatment. Most of the house was
demolished and a pair of women's slippers lay near bloodstained ground,
according to AP Television News video. Relatives wept as blanket-covered
bodies were loaded onto pickups to be driven to the hospital. "Sadly, this incident
again shows that the AQI (al-Qaida in Iraq) terrorists repeatedly risk the
lives of innocent women and children to further their evil work," a
military spokesman, Col. Jerry O'Hara, said. Iraqi police and hospital
officials put the death toll at eight and some said two men and a woman were
shot down at the gate as they tried to surrender. Police Capt. Mohammed
al-Douri, who reported five men and three women killed, said one of the dead
was Ali Hassan Ali, a truck driver. Ali called the police station about 2
a.m. to say U.S. troops had surrounded the house and opened fire, al-Douri
said. "He told us that the
Americans were using loudspeakers ordering them to go out of the house, then
the call was cut," al-Douri said. Tribal chief Sheik Faris
al-Fadaam said the family moved from Baghdad more than two years ago after
the head of the household, Hassan Ali, was killed because he was a Sunni
policeman. "The family was very
poor," al-Fadaam said. "The family came here and we helped them to
rent that house. It was an extended family. They did not have any political
affiliations. They did not engage in any hostile activity or have any
connection with gunmen." Associated Press writer
Bushra Juhi contributed to this report. Copyright © 2008 The
Associated Press. External link: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hwK_CSpBxsNuVUEaDuOwmSSCiqGwD939VSC03 Iraqi Official Condemns
Deadly US Raid By Deutsche Presse-Agentur September 19, 2008 Baghdad - Salahaddin
province deputy governor denounced on Friday a US forces raid in the northern
Iraqi province, which left eight people dead, describing the operation as
"tragic". "Early excuses
presented by US troops to al-Dor town police were rejected," Abdullah
Hussein Jabbara said in a statement to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. Earlier on Friday, witnesses
told dpa that US forces killed a family of eight, including two children, in
a helicopter bombing on their house in Salahaddin province. Two children and three women
were among the victims when the Ali Taema household in the al-Dor district,
170 kilometres north of Baghdad, was hit. "The house is occupied
by one family and no one has entered the house when it was raided. The US
forces should have made sure before destroying the house," Jabbara
explained. Jabbara demanded US forces
to be more careful in the raid operations "to avoid the tragic accidents
that took place several times before". A spokesman for the US-led
forces in Baghdad said it was targeting terrorists and said the raid had
killed at least three suspects, adding that the US military warned residents
repeatedly for an hour before the raid. He said forces bombed the house when
those inside refused to surrender. The coalition forces
spokesman said the raid had killed three women and three terrorist suspects,
in addition to a child the US military said it had pulled from the rubble and
given medical care. "Sadly, this incident
again shows that the al-Qaeda terrorists repeatedly risk the lives of
innocent women and children to further their evil work," Multi-National
Forces Spokesperson, Jerry O'Hara said. The coalition spokesman said
one of the men killed in the raid was an explosives maker for al-Qaeda. The US and Iraq are
negotiating a long-term security pact that would regulate US troops in Iraq.
One of the most controversial elements of the pact is the issue of whether US
soldiers would be immune from local prosecution. In a separate development,
unidentified gunmen shot dead a woman in front of her house in Qada al-Tuz
district in Kirkuk, 250 kilometres north-east of the Iraqi capital Baghdad,
VOI reported. The gunmen fled to an unknown destination. Meanwhile, a source told the
Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency on Friday that US forces will release 100
detainees from their jails near the Baghdad airport on Saturday as part of a
programme to free Iraqi prisoners during the holy Muslim fasting month of
Ramadan. "US army has released
more than 1,000 Iraqis from its jails during Ramadan in batches," said
Kareem al-Sayab, a media advisor for the US forces, adding that the total
number of Iraqi prisoners in US detention centres was 18,900, including 150
juveniles and 10 women. "The release takes
place after verifying that those prisoners would pose no threat to the Iraqi
society," Sayab added. © Copyright 2008 Deutsche
Presse-Agentur. External link: http://www.military.com/news/article/September-2008/iraqi-official-condemns-deadly-us-raid-.html |