Airstrike on al-Zarqawi safe house kills 18

[seemslikeadream]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Coalition forces in Iraq have launched a missile strike against what they said was a "safe house" in Fallujah linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an insurgent wanted in connection with attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqis.

Hours later a bomb exploded on a sidewalk in central Baghdad wounding five Iraqis, according to an Iraqi Interior Ministry official.

Two women, a police officer and two other Iraqis were hurt in the explosion which happened 7:30 a.m. Sunday (11.30 p.m. Saturday ET), the official said.

Along with damage to the facade of a store near central Baghdad's Ahrar Bridge, a small bus was damaged, the official said.

Earlier Saturday hospital and Iraqi official sources said at least 18 Iraqis were killed and nine others were wounded in the city, where witnesses described a U.S. airstrike

more
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/20/iraq.main/

[Syrinx]

1. Isn't this the one from last night?

Or is this new?

[seemslikeadream]

3. CNN news said 20 minutes ago when I posted it

It looks like the same though, why would CNN just be posting it?

[Syrinx]

5. I don't know, it justs seems like a carbon copy

:shrug:

[0rganism]

10. There appear to be multiple similar attacks

Hell, I have to figure out if these are duplicate articles or not. This one seems to have occurred later than others I've read about.

E.g., http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=632574
links to
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040619/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
which is dated "Sat Jun 19, 6:22 PM ET"

The attack reported in this thread is dated at "11.30 p.m. Saturday ET", so I'm going to presume they're distinct events.

And there was another attack like this the day before yesterday, IIRC.

Eventually, they all blend together in a crumpled montage of bloodshed and destruction.

[nolabels]

2. I was reading about the same story with a different take just now

http://www.antiwar.com/
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/latest/story/0,4390,257244,00.html?
US plane attacks neighbourhood in Fallujah
(snip)
Elsewhere, US troops battled insurgents northeast of Baghdad for a fourth day in fighting that has killed at least six Iraqis and one American soldier, the US military and witnesses said. In southern Iraq, a roadside bomb killed at least two people, including a Portuguese security officer.
Advertisement

Bodies were taken for burial soon afterward in the city's 'martyrs' cemetery,' in accordance with Islamic custom to bury dead quickly. The Iraqi Health Ministry said 16 people had died, though they expected the number to rise. Local residents said 20 people had died
(snip)
Outraged residents accused the Americans of trying to inflict maximum damage by firing two strikes - one first to attack and another to kill the rescuers.

US Marines pulled back from Fallujah in late April after three weeks of fighting touched off when four American security contractors were killed in an ambush and their bodies mutilated.
(snip)

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,257047,00.html
Fear turns to anger as Iraqis blame US for bloodshed

By Betsy Pisik

BAGHDAD - Behind Yarmouk Hospital, in a small courtyard smeared with blood, lies the morgue holding 17 bodies from Thursday's car bomb that exploded outside an army recruiting station.


Sorting through the carnage wreaked by Thursday's bombing in Baghdad are Iraqis trying to grapple with their country's lawlessness. -- AP

It is almost as warm inside the freezer box as it is in the blindingly bright yard, because the generator cannot keep the refrigeration unit going.

There is a smell of something like disinfectant, but it won't last for long in Baghdad's mid-afternoon sun.

Some corpses are barefoot, and some are blackened; several stare with lifeless eyes
(snip)

[Tinoire]

4. How moral. How decent.

According to a new poster with whom I just 'exchanged thoughts'- we are not terrorists. We are moral and decent. It is not 'real' terror if the victims are not American.

"Terrorists should all be killed without any pity"

Words fail when you read something this horrible and imagine what it must have been like. What is this if not terror?

16 people had died, though they expected the number to rise. Local residents said 20 people had died.
(snip)
Outraged residents accused the Americans of trying to inflict maximum damage by firing two strikes - one first to attack and another to kill the rescuers.

[seemslikeadream]

7. I've missed you

n/t

[Tinoire]

16. Hi

I had to take a break from all the news :hi: It was getting too depressing and I was becoming too short-tempered. It's good to be back because I missed talking with you and a few others.

Feeling much fresher now and ready to fight the BFEE. Thanks SLAD- that was a nice welcome

:hi:

[seemslikeadream]

18. Here's a better welcome back

Tinoire
Go America. Just GO! GO AWAY! / My response to your powerful post


But these light-skinned people, descendants of the Old Colonials, and their darker skinned "house niggers"

living in these houses

and riding these very rare horses in Haiti on jump courses most Upper-class Americans can only dream of

thought it was worth it

to send School of the Americas thugs like these to kill our own countrymen

and bring the Ton-Ton Macoute Republican/DLC-loving tortures back.

These people, very dark-skinned as you can see, disagreed.

This boy will die from it

This girl, still alive, dreams of a better world
http://www.sakapfet.com/photocontest/2003/images/entries/Mariejo%20Mont-Reynaud,%20Palo%
Be afraid America. We will gracefully carry our burden but we shall expose your shame once again, just as in 1804.
http://www.sakapfet.com/photocontest/2003/images/entries/Andre%20Boulmier,%20Meyrin%
because our children, too, have a right to dreams & rightful expectations of a decent life
http://www.sakapfet.com/photocontest/2003/images/entries/Jermain%20J%20Merola,%20Jacquet%
We shall not forgive you or the evil bogeymen you bought

We shall not forget the boys you slaughtered

all in the name of Americans and Haitian collaborators who live in homes like this

So take your ass-hole

Take your DLC

Take your God-damned imperialistic military

And get the fuck out of my country

No need to fly your Stars and Stripes

because we have our own flag of which we are sufficiently proud, & which means things through its colors which give you NIGHTMARES

& a constitution that REALLY meant something and liberated South American countries from 'subsidizing' your way of life

Haiti, not America, was the first "Free" Republic in the Western Hemisphere but it galls America, built on the blood & sweat of slaves, to acknowledge that a bunch of slaves whooped imperialistic ass.

18 May, 2004 denouncing the US occupation of Haiti
Tens of thousands of Haitians took to the streets on May 18 to call for the return of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and for an end to the country’s foreign military occupation.
Haitian police units backed up by U.S. Marines fired in the air and into crowds, killing at least one demonstrator. Saintus “Titus” Simpson, 23, of Delmas 33 was shot in the head, spilling his brain, as demonstrators approached the central Champ de Mars square.

Marguerite Laurent of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership cited sources saying that at least four people died. “One Haitian woman seized the fourth body that fell next to her and refused to give it to the Marines,” Laurent reported. “She removed all her clothes to show she had no weapons while Marines surrounded her at gunpoint. She cursed in Kreyol, calling on the revolutionary ancestors and shouting “Liberte ou lamo!” (Liberty or death!) She picked up the body herself and put it on her bare back, daring the Marines to kill her also while she carried it away.”

<snip>

The night before the march, U.S. helicopters flew and hovered low all over the city, Washington’s now common form of psychological warfare in Haiti.

<snip>

http://www.haitiprogres.com/eng05-19.html

[Tinoire]

19. Brings tears to the eyes

So much misery to fight! My comfort is that people like you are making more people aware and that's what we need- aware people.

Thanks

:hug:

[Just Me]

20. Hi Ya' Tinoire!!!!

:hi:

I missed you!!!! :hug:

[Tinoire]

25. Aw shucks!

Thanks. :hug: You should see the smile on my face. It's really good to be back. Thanks - I'm happy to see you

:hi:

[nodehopper]

8. new freeper, huh?

[Tinoire]

17. Lol, let's just say many people's bristles were raised

:)

[Karenina]

26. They seem to be simply

changing the headline HOURLY. First it was civilians, then it morphed into the "evil villain's SAFEHOUSE" in spite of reports confirmed by Iraqi police that it was an extended family. Never mind them, they're all just lying sand nigger turrists anyway... You remember that JORDANIAN, (NO WAY anyone in the Falluja 'hood would have noticed a furriner, they ALL be in cahoots) the guy who is alive but dead, had a leg amputated and now has two... But NEVER FEAR, there's a NEW VILLAIN in Saudi Arabia who has taken over "Al-Qaeda." Surely you got the routine down by now... the SAVAGES who behead "innocent" Americans... NUKE 'EM!!! :eyes: :SIGH: :eyes:
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[Darranar]

28. Welcome back Tinoire!

I've missed your posts.

[punpirate]

6. Until there's a lot more evidence that he's dead or alive...

... I intend to continue thinking that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is this administration's Emmanuel Goldstein.

[nodehopper]

9. good call.

we have always been at war with eurasia. Never mind the pictures of Rummy with Saddam from the 80s.

[lazarus]

14. and Bush

passed up three opportunities to take Zarqawi out before the war.

[quagmire_iraq]

11. Iraq police dismiss US claims in Falluja

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EA2EC375-43E7-43B7-80E9-3C1E2CDFE1A2.htm

Iraq police dismiss US claims in Falluja


Falluja's residents are again burying those killed in US attacks

Top Iraqi security officials in the city of Falluja have dismissed US claims that a house destroyed by a deadly American air strike was used by al-Qaida fighters.

Brigadier Nuri Abudi, a member of the Falluja Brigade entrusted by the US occupation with imposing security in the city, said evidence showed the destroyed building was the home of an extended Iraqi family.

"We inspected the damage, we looked through the bodies of the women and children and elderly. This was a family," he said on Sunday.

"There is no sign of foreigners having lived in the house. Zarqawi and his men have no presence in Falluja," he said, referring to Abu Mussab Zarqawi.

US warplanes launched a fierce strike in the city, some 50km west of the capital, early on Saturday, leaving 22 people dead. Residents said women and children were killed in the attack.


Iraqi police insisted there are no signs of al-Qaida in Falluja

"This was an attack on a family in a house and it killed all
of them. There are no signs that people like Zarqawi were in the house or in Falluja," he said. "This attack was conducted without any coordination with us."


Civilians found their cars damaged at the al-Shahada Bridge

[seemslikeadream]

23. Thanks quagmire_iraq

you know Sy Hersch just said Israel told Cheney political win not gonna happen and to change course 6 months ago!

oh and Israel has been working with the Kurds for awhile now, not military but intelligence.

[quagmire_iraq]

12. 22 Guerrillas Die in Fallujah Bombing

22 Guerrillas Die in Fallujah Bombing

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=117531>The US dropped two bombs on a poor residential district of Fallujah on Saturday, killing at least 22 and wounding 9. The F-16 destroyed two houses and damaged 6 others. Most of those dead, including 3 women and 5 children, belonged to the extended family of a local farmer, Muhammad Hamadi. The US maintained that the building hit was a safe house for the al-Tawhid terrorist group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Local Iraqis in Fallujah maintained that most of those killed were innocent civilians.

I don't mean to be a killjoy, but for an Occupying Power to drop bombs on residential neighborhoods is a war crime. The three women and five children killed are not "collateral damage." They are human beings. They were killed by the United States. There are no such things as "precision strikes" in residential neighborhoods. Bombs not only throw off shrapnel themselves, they create lots of deadly flying debris, including flying glass from broken windows, that can kill and maim. Dropping bombs on an tank corps assembled in the desert and intending to do harm is one thing. Dropping bombs on a residential district is another.

We on the outside have no way of judging the various claims made in these sorts of situations. For all I know the Hamadi clan has a lot of blood on its hands and has been blowing up people. But if so, they should have been arrested by a special ops team cooperating with the Fallujah Brigade. You can't go around bombing residential buildings and killing women and children if you are to retain any respect whatsoever from the local population or, indeed, the world community. Remember that when Bush puts pressure on India or Pakistan to send troops to help in Iraq, one of the implications is that he is asking their military officers to be an active party to things like bombing residential complexes. They have publics that are already angry about the US occupation of Iraq and how it has been (mis)managed. They need to be associated with this kind of action like they need a hole in the head. That's the pragmatic argument. The legal argument against carrying out this kind of strike is that the pilots who conceivably be charged in some tribunal somewhere in the world, as, indeed, could everyone above them who approved the order to strike.

There were manifestations of public anger over all this in Fallujah, and presumably in the rest of the Sunni heartland. It doesn't do any good to kill 15 guerrillas and their wives and children (if they were in fact guerrillas) if in so doing you create 30 more.

posted by Juan @ 6/20/2004 08:12:05 AM <http://www.juancole.com/>

[quagmire_iraq]

13. O'Reilly: Iraqi people are "primitive," "prehistoric group"

Whereas O'Reilly clearly sees himself as part of the master race.



http://mediamatters.org/items/200406180005

[quagmire_iraq]

15. Followup: More details from the Guardian:

Quote of the Day
"To blame Saddam for Zarqawi's presence in Iraq would be like blaming Fidel Castro for instances of torture at Guantanamo Bay."

- Zachary Roth at the Columbia Journalism Review
(Link courtesy of Oliver Willis) http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000648.asp


Add 20 more dead Iraqis to the list

Once again, U.S. terrorists strike in Iraq:

"In a bloody surprise attack, the U.S. military launched precision weapons into a poor residential neighborhood of Fallujah on Saturday to destroy what officers described as a safe house used by fighters loyal to Abu Musab Zarqawi and perhaps, at times, by the fugitive terrorist leader himself.

"Residents said about 20 people were killed, including women and children, despite a cease-fire with U.S. occupation forces that has brought relative peace for the last six weeks to the rebellious city 35 miles west of Baghdad. Images from the site of the blast showed two collapsed houses, with people in white robes picking through the rubble looking for buried victims and lost property."

Ah, the famed Zarqawi. But was he really there? Spokesliar Gen. Mark Kimmitt says he doesn't know, but that "'multiple confirmations of actionable intelligence'" indicated that several of his operatives were present." Not everyone's got the word though:

"'He's had a number of locations,' a senior U.S. military official said of Zarqawi after the strike on Saturday. 'This may have been one of the locations where he's at. . . . We just don't have any evidence.'"

So it may have been...or it may not. But on the basis of not having "any evidence," the military goes ahead and kills 20 people. They knew very well that civilians were present, but Kimmitt says "it is standard operating procedure to conduct a detailed collateral damage estimate prior to approval of this type of mission. The collateral damage estimate was within permissible limits." Permissible to whom? Permissible under what law or moral code?

I've used this analogy before, but I can't remember if it was in this blog or not. Imagine an escaped, convicted, armed mass murderer is holed up in a shopping mall in the U.S. Do you think it would be "permissible" to drop a bomb on the mall to kill the murderer, knowing a few hundred people might be "taken out"? What about if the murderer was standing in a middle of a crowd of a dozen people? Or even had a single hostage? How would you feel if the police in your town routinely "opened up" on the subject in a situation like that, knowing that the chances that the hostage would be killed by their fire was virtually a certainty? To say the least, I doubt most people would want to live in a city like that. But when Iraqi civilians are involved, it's a different story. A very different story.


Followup: More details from the Guardian: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1243101,00.html

"Dr Fadhil al-Baddrani said the entire family of Mohammed Hamadi, a 65-year-old farmer, married with two wives, were killed. Among the dead where his wives and children. At least three women and five chil dren were among the dead. 'The whole family is gone,' said al-Baddrani. 'The blast was so powerful it blew them to pieces. We could only recognise the women by their long hair.'"

According to this eyewitness, all 22 people killed were members of al-Baddrani's extended family. There is no confirmation that any of them were involved in the resistance.

Another eyewitness report spotlights the American tactics:

"Outraged residents accused America of trying to inflict maximum damaged by firing two strikes - one first to attack and another to kill the rescuers.

"'The number of casualties is so high because after the first missile we jumped to rescue the victims,' said Wissam ali-Hamad. 'The second missile killed those trying to carry out the rescue.'"

Note, by the way, that this attack is said to have been carried out because the Americans had "multiple confirmations of actionable intelligence." But remember this - there are no Americans in Fallujah. How reliable could this information have been? Most likely, about as reliable as the information that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD. Americans lie, Iraqis die.


<http://lefti.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_lefti_archive.html#108769156910715336>

[Just Me]

21. I agree. Dropping bombs on residential areas is a war crime!!! n/t

[quagmire_iraq]

22. Even more disinformation

Now they are saying that around 40 resistance fighters from the area and not al Qaeda fighters (and it was also an ammo dump) were also killed which means over 60 killed with at least another 60 injured. How can over 100 people live in such a small house? I can understand poor extended families living close with their wife's and children but they would not allow outside males to come in close contact with their wife's and children. With all the reporters and children crawling around the place I am surprised one of them did not get blown up with the dispersed mines from the ammo dump.


The house though heavily damaged/destroyed is still standing...

[seemslikeadream]

24. BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...

HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...

BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html WATCH THIS VIDEO


Wumpscut
Totmacher

sie ahnten nichts von mir
von meiner wilden gier
doch als du kamst zu mir
da wurde ich ein tier
kein gedanke an danach
als ich dir die knochen brach

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

tot

fuer mein naechstes leben
schoepfe ich neue kraft
ich bin dem toeten ergeben
in der einzelhaft

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot
tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

ein dahinsichen
von gottes hand
ich kann dich riechen
und das denken verschwand

tot tot tot tot tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot tot tot tot tot

ich mache dich tot ich mache dich tot
ich mache dich tot ich mache dich tot

sag mir was du willst
dass du meine sehnsucht stillst
ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
von blut alles rot auf gottes altar

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
ich mache dich tot glaub mir es ist wahr
ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
ich mache dich tot auf gottes altar


TRANSLATION

Wumpscut - Deadmaker

They didn't expect me
never expected my wild lust
I turned into an animal
No thought about afterwards
When I broke your bones

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

Dead

For my next life (life after death in the religious sense)
I get the power I need
I’m a slave to the killing
In solitary confinement

("einzelhaft" (solitary confinment) has become part of the german vocabulary after the terrorist attacks of the Red Army Fraction during the 70's. It's used for people in prison, who are put into complete isolation not just from other people, but from all kinds of information. It's what might be known in the US as "sensual deprivation", a kind of torture-technique to destroy people's self.)

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red
Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

Wasting away
By God’s hand
I can smell you
And my thought disappeared

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red
Dead, dead, dead, dead

I make you dead I make you dead
I make you dead I make you dead

Tell me what you want
That you fill my longing (that you satisfy my desire)
I make you dead for evermore
God’s altar stained from blood so red

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

I make you dead for evermore
I make you dead believe me its true
I make you dead for evermore
I make you dead on God’s altar

[Darranar]

27. These are all "insurgents", right?

Do they really think that al-Zarqawi would hide in BAGHDAD, of all places, an area firmly under US control?

Did they actually have any evidence that he was there when they attacked? Apparentally not, if all they're claiming is that this was a "safe house".

And if he was, why didn't they capture him, instead of striking at the place and murdering eighteen people in the process?

This is another despicable atrocity by the occupation forces.

[keithyboy]

29. If this is another report, does it mean the first attack was a mistake?

And we are to believe that it really was a safe house because....?