US army kills two Iraqi sisters in Baquba

[Aidoneus]

US army kills two Iraqi sisters in Baquba
Friday 28 November 2003

Two young Iraqi sisters have been shot and killed by US troops near Baquba, some 60km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, police and family members said on Friday.

American troops at Ibn Firnas airport, seven kilometres (four miles) from Baquba, shot Fatima and Azra, 15 and 12, on Thursday at midday as they were collecting wood from a field some 30m away, their brother said.

"Azra died on the spot and my other sister later died from her wounds," said 18-year-old Qusay.

Policeman Hussein Ali said US forces handed one of the girls' bodies over to the police "arguing that she had a gun in her possession."

Police searched the girls' home, "without finding anything illegal," Ali added.

There was no immediate comment from the US military.

--snip--

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F9EAD9BE-BC2D-47B3-9C24-4276D6C99B4B.htm

[MaineDem]

1. Horrendous!

;(

[OrAnarch]

21. yeah, but...

I bet their families are proud that these boys are servings their country, doing their duty, and defending their nation. The best we have to offer, so "support the troops" slaughter of the innocent.

[leftchick]

2. of course there is no comment from the US...

because they don't fucking count all of the Iraqi corpses they leave behind! Rest assured the Iraqis are counting them..... :grr:

[UpInArms]

3. reminds me of Tommy Franks

Postwar calculations are rough, but they are all there is since Iraqi officials kept no tally. The US also avoided the issue. "We don't do body counts", said General Tommy Franks, the US commander.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,965234,00.html

I am so ashamed of my country :(

[oasis]

22. Somebody ask Toby Keith to write a song about that.

[calimary]

24. Yeah, and a second one by that insufferable, nauseating Lee Greenwood.

[Mikimouse]

4. We need to follow this story

I will be curious to see if anyone asks about sexual assault evidence.

[theHandpuppet]

6. Good Lord...

That didn't even occur to me, but you're right.

Of course, we no longer have the kind of journalists in this country who will even report this story, much less investigate it.

[DuctapeFatwa]

9. We have the kind of journalists who might have 12 year old daughters

themselves.

This is a regime that disappears peoples' children for "interrogation" of a nature that kills grown men, and these two little girls are not the first kids to be murdered.

This is a regime that bombs news outlets and seizes, disappears and murders journalists.

It is pretty astonishing that this story was reported at all.

[theHandpuppet]

5. This makes me SICK

How many innocents, how many civilians, how many children will we murder in this unquenchable American thirst for mindless revenge? Is it this kind of daily slaughter that proves us
to be righteous? Does the senseless death of women and children in Iraq assuage anyone's pain over 9-11, does it lessen anyone's fear?

[TolstoyAndy]

15. The answer is blowin' in the wind

but me I'm just crying.

[teryang]

7. The wisdom of the Iraqi truck driver

"This is normal. If someone is killed his family has to take revenge," said Abed, the truck driver. "The Americans kill people by mistake and then apologize the next day. This doesn't work here."

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=4&u=/ap/20031124/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq>

Revenge is a way of life in the middle east.

[booksenkatz]

8. Gee, so she had a gun

Maybe it was for her own personal protection? I'm always hearing that if we all carried guns, we'd have a safe society. Don't we want Iraqis to have a safe society? Surely the NRA will be outraged that the girl was killed simply because she was carrying a gun.
</sarcasm>

[lumpy]

11. The troops who killed them told Iraqi police

that one of the girls had a gun. No report whether or not she threatened the soldiers with the alleged gun. The Iraqi police searched the girl's home and found nothing suspicious. At any rate , were the brave troops defending themselves ?

[leftchick]

12. of course they said she had a gun....

how else do they defend their senseless act of murder? I believe she was brandishing firewood.

[Voice_of_Europe]

14. Nervous troops might mistake EVERYTHING for a gun

.. like a branch of wood for example?

and if ONE soldier starts to shoot at anything the others snap and shoot until nothing moves anymore...

[Iverson]

10. Was this for Thanksgiving or no?

America wants to know!

[scarface2004]

13. she was holding up her wallet...

assholes!!

[TolstoyAndy]

17. well, if she was holding her wallet ...

she would have been shot through the bottom of her feet, right?

As in NY.

[PsychoDad]

16. We have become a nation

of child murderers. Not a week goes by that our troops don't end the life of another child.

It is surprising that this is even reported. Guess they figure the masses won't even care.

[Barrett808]

18. Corroborating link

In unrest reported north of Baghdad Friday, two young Iraqi sisters were killed by US troops as they collected wood from a field near Baqubah, police and family members said.

"Hundreds protest terror in Baghdad; US soldier killed in mortar attack"
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031128/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_worldwrap

This paragraph shows up near the bottom. I like the way these "collateral damage" stories have been routinely buried in the last couple of weeks.

[Barrett808]

19. Buried leads -- Iraqi civilians killed at US hands, story an afterthought

Here are a few recent examples of stories in which shootings of Iraqi civilians by US troops received only cursory coverage.

Hundreds protest terror in Baghdad; US soldier killed in mortar attack
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031128/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_worldwrap

In unrest reported north of Baghdad Friday, two young Iraqi sisters were killed by US troops as they collected wood from a field near Baqubah, police and family members said.

---

Iraqis Bury 8 Villagers Allegedly Killed in Raid

No print story -- this is an AP report available as video only. It was listed on this page:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031124/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

but is gone now, and searches of the Yahoo site and the Google news cache don't find it.

This URL still seems to work:

http://mediaframe.yahoo.com/launch?p=news&l=SAM&a=0,30&provider=ap_av&.test=1&f=53746348&lid=rnv-56-s.5487581,rnv-128-s.5487581,rnv-200-s.5487581,rnv-300-s.5487581,wmv-50-s.5487582,wmv-100-s.5487583,wmv-300-s.5487584,&t=AudioVideo%20%2d%20AP%20%2d%20Iraqis%20Bury%208%20Villagers%20Allegedly%20Killed%20in%20Raid%20&bw=http%25253A%25252F%25252Fstory.news.yahoo.com%25252Fnews%25253Ftmpl%25253Dindex2%252526cid%25253D979&dw=http%253A%252F%252Fstory.news.yahoo.com%252Fnews%253Ftmpl%253Dstory2%2526u%253D%252Fap_av%252F20031124%252Fav_ap_wl%252F582c02ec4f57b7c378f11feab43fa35f",750,650

---

Three U.S. troops killed in Iraq
MSNBC staff and wire reports
http://msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?0cv=CB10

In Samara, about 75 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi police said six U.S. Apache helicopter gunships blasted marshland after four rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the American military garrison at the northern entrance to the city. One Iraqi passer-by was killed in the air attack.

---

U.S. Jets Strike Targets in Central Iraq
By SLOBODAN LEKIC
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3421862,00.html

No Americans were injured, but two Iraqis were hurt when, according to police, U.S. soldiers stunned by the explosion opened fire in all directions. The U.S. military said it was investigating.

---

Part Three: Guerrilla war without any end in sight
Iraq: The insurgents are a hotch-potch of ex-army officers, Baathists and Islamists, not al-Qa'ida, reports Phil Reeves from Baghdad
23 November 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=466409

The Americans argued that "Iron Hammer" won support from peaceable Iraqis. But a tragic cameo illustrated how they are at times the recruiting sergeant for their opponents. US soldiers were conducting a house-to-house weapons search in al-Dora in southern Baghdad at 10am on Monday. An altercation blew up between an Iraqi carpenter and an American soldier. It ended when the soldier shot the man through the heart from close range.

Relatives of the dead man, Ahmed Karim al-Janabi, 36, say that he did nothing to provoke the soldier, although they admit that he was holding a small saw in his hand when he was shot. The Americans maintained that he attacked one of them. The family wanted the US troops to provide a document confirming the incident, so that they could get burial authorisation.

A note was duly scrawled out and handed to the imam of the local mosque. It was 18 words long. "Ahmed Kareem Abid was shot by US forces. The individual attacked a US soldier and was shot and killed. SSG Doe." That was it. No polite expressions or formalities, so important in the Arab world. The sergeant didn't even have the courtesy to sign his own name.

The imam, Sheikh Yassin al-Hambani, was so angry that he tore up the note. "I told the soldiers: what are you doing? They are driving people to resist. Two young men came to me afterwards saying they wanted to avenge his death by attacking the Americans. It was difficult to dissuade them."

---

Rockets hit two hotels in Baghdad
U.S. soldier dies in Iraq convoy bombing
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/20/sprj.irq.main/index.html

Two schoolchildren were killed in Karbala Thursday after a child between 10 and 12 found an explosive device on the school yard and brought it into the classroom, where it exploded, a coalition spokesman said. An unknown number of children were wounded in what the spokesman termed a "sad accident." The explosion was not terrorism-related, the spokesman said. (Cluster bomblet, perhaps? --Barrett808)


(on edit: formatting, spelling)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

20. Welcome to Iraqestine.

[DUreader]

23. kick