Iraqis killed by US troops ‘on rampage’

[DoYouEverWonder]

March 26, 2006

Claims of atrocities by soldiers mount

THE villagers of Abu Sifa near the Iraqi town of Balad had become used to the sound of explosions at night as American forces searched the area for suspected insurgents. But one night two weeks ago Issa Harat Khalaf heard a different sound that chilled him to the bone.

Khalaf, a 33-year-old security officer guarding oil pipelines, saw a US helicopter land near his home. American soldiers stormed out of the Chinook and advanced on a house owned by Khalaf’s brother Fayez, firing as they went.

Khalaf ran from his own house and hid in a nearby grove of trees. He saw the soldiers enter his brother’s home and then heard the sound of women and children screaming.

“Then there was a lot of machinegun fire,” he said last week. After that there was the most frightening sound of all — silence, followed by explosions as the soldiers left the house.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2103695,00.html

Heck of a job, Rummie.

[WillParkinson]

1. That headline is weird...

"Iraqis killed by US troops ‘on rampage’"

Very Night of the Living Dead.

Sadly, we've not won hearts, minds, or anything else. The only thing we've succeeded in doing is hurting our image in the eyes of the world. If, as Bush says, they've not devolved into a Civil War it's seemingly pretty damn close.

[Eric J in MN]

2. It's way past time for the US to leave Iraq (nt)

nt

[izzie]

3. It is so scary when we do not learn anything.

and on it goes.

[cornermouse]

4. They talked about something like this on c-span.

Sickening.

[CJCRANE]

5. I wish

the Times would stop printing bad news...what about all the good news?

It's that darn "liberal media" again stirring up trouble..

Oh wait, except the Times is a conservative RW paper and it's still printing bad news out of Iraq..

[DaveJ]

6. This is what happens when military does a job that police should do....

"According to Iraqi police, 11 bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the house, among them four women and five children"

No wonder Iraqi police aren't up to the job. The military is not designed to handle internal security issues so certainly can't train the police.

This is what happens due to lack of preparation.

An investigation should be open into the (lack of) surgical attacks of the war.

[wookie294]

7. ''Rampage'' is a good word to describe America's war in Iraq

Sorry to see DU relegate this news story to the "editorial" section. America needs to WAKE UP. America is rampaging thru Iraq and massacring and imprisoning innocent civilians.

[0007]

8. Argh!!

It was on November 19 last year that a US marine armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb that killed a 20-year-old lance-corporal. According to a marine communiqué issued the next day, the blast also killed 15 Iraqi civilians and was followed by an attack on the US convoy in which eight insurgents were killed.

An investigation by Time established that the civilians had not been killed by the roadside bomb, but were shot in their homes after the marines rampaged through Haditha. Among the dead were seven women and three children.

Last week Jalal Abdul Rahman told this newspaper about the death in January of his 12- year-old son Abdul. It was a Sunday evening and father and son were driving home after buying a new game for the boy’s PlayStation. They were a few hundred yards from their home in the Karkh neighbourhood of Baghdad when — according to Rahman — US forces opened fire on the car, killing Abdul.

Soldiers approached the car and told Rahman he had failed to stop when ordered to do so. Rahman said he had never heard an order to stop. The soldiers searched the car and, as they departed, they threw a black body bag on the ground.

“They said, ‘This is for your son,’ and they left me there with my dead son,” he added.

Rahman claimed he had had nothing to do with the insurgency until that moment. “But this is America, the so-called guardian of humanity, and killing people for them is like drinking water. I shall go after them until I avenge the blood of my son.”

[xchrom]

9. liberating Iraqis -- permanently.