Death Toll 08/09 - 08/10/03

[DoYouEverWonder]

Family shot dead by panicking US troops


Firing blindly during a power cut, soldiers kill a father and three children in their car
By Justin Huggler in Baghdad

10 August 2003

The abd al-Kerim family didn't have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop.

"We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us," the heavily pregnant Ms abd al-Kerim said. "We were calling out to them 'Stop, stop, we are a family', but they kept on shooting."

The story of how Adel abd al-Kerim and three of his children were killed emerged yesterday, exactly 100 days after President George Bush declared the war in Iraq was over. In Washington yesterday, Mr Bush declared in a radio address: "Life is returning to normal for the Iraqi people ... All Americans can be proud of what our military and provisional authorities have achieved in Iraq."


<snip>

It happened at 9.30 at night, an hour after sunset, but long before the start of the curfew at 11pm. The Americans had set up roadblocks in the Tunisia quarter of Baghdad, where the abd al-Kerims live. The family pulled up to the roadblock sensibly, slowly and carefully, so as not to alarm the Americans.

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Ex-Gurkha killed in ambush as more riots flare in Basra


11 August 2003

British soldiers fought to control rioting Iraqis in the southern city of Basra for the second day running yesterday. At least one Iraqi protester was shot dead, but in the chaos in the city nobody could tell who killed him. A Nepalese former gurkha working for a private security firm was shot dead in an ambush by Iraqi gunmen.

<snip>

The unrest in Basra is some of the worst the British have faced since the US President, George Bush, declared the war over. While American soldiers have faced daily attacks by RPGs and explosives in the rest of the country, in the south things have been generally quieter for the British.

But the violence which seethed on the streets of Basra yesterday was not orchestrated by the resistance, it appears. Rather it was ordinary Iraqis who took to the streets in fury at constant power cuts and acute fuel shortages. With temperatures above 50C (122F), Iraqis desperately need electricity to power their air conditioners.

<snip>

The former gurkha was shot dead after his car was ambushed in Basra as he delivered mail for the United Nations. He was working privately for the company Global Security. Many Nepalese former gurkhas work for private security firms in Iraq.

more…

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Israel hits back after shells kill youth


11 August 2003

Israel yesterday warned Hizbollah that it was "playing with fire" after anti-aircraft shells killed a 16-year-old youth and wounded four other civilians in the Western Galilee town of Shlomi. Air force helicopters hit back at the position from which the shells were fired.

<snip>

An Israeli military spokesman said Hizbollah hit Shlomi with three 57 mm anti-aircraft shells. The victims were renovating a nursery school. The dead teenager, Haviv Dadon, suffered shrapnel wounds in the chest and arms.

The spokesman would not say whether any Israeli planes were patrolling at the time. Yesterday's was Israel's first civilian fatality on the border since March 2002 and the sixth since Israel withdrew its forces from Southern Lebanon three years ago.

After eight months of quiet, Hizbollah gunners attacked military positions with anti-tank missiles on Friday. Israel responded in kind, though no casualties were reported on either side during an hour-long exchange of fire. On Saturday, anti-aircraft missiles damaged a flat in the Upper Galilee town of Kiryat Shmona.



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Trouble flares again in Basra

Sunday, 10 August, 2003

Disturbances have broken out for a second day in the southern Iraqi city of Basra as frustration over fuel shortages took hold.

Two deaths were reported in the city as hundreds of youths took to the streets.
A Nepalese former Gurkha working for a civilian security company was shot dead in an ambush as he was delivering mail for the UN, a military spokesman said.

And one Iraqi was also reported to have been killed during the protests, although it was unclear how this happened.


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Troops hunting rebels kill three


Sunday, 10 August, 2003

Troops in the Philippines have killed three people while pursuing armed rebel groups in the south of the country.

According to a military statement, six soldiers were injured and three gunmen were killed during a battle on the island of Mindanao, where soldiers are fighting several Muslim separatist factions.

A military spokesman said soldiers had clashed with gunmen who they believed were protecting Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, who escaped from a Manila prison last month.


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Five brothers shot dead in Karachi


KARACHI, Aug 9: Five brothers were shot dead by unidentified men on Jahangir Road late Saturday night. Witnesses told the police that three men on a Honda-125 motorcycle intercepted a Suzuki Hi-roof on Jahangir Road in Jamshed Quarter's area and sprayed its occupants with bullets. The assailants fled.

A police official said four of the victims were pronounced dead on arrival at the Civil Hospital. The fifth succumbed to his wounds afterwards. They were identified as Mohammad Javed, Mohammad Asif, Imran, Mehmood and Ismail.

The victims were all bearded but their affiliation could not be ascertained immediately.


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Iran Radio Says 110 Have Died Crossing Into Iraq


Sun Aug 10, 8:54 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - More than 100 people have been killed as they tried to cross Iran's heavily mined border to visit holy sites in Iraq over the last seven weeks, Iranian state radio reported Sunday.

Government officials have repeatedly urged Iranians in recent weeks not to travel to visit Shi'ite Muslim shrines in Iraq, citing security concerns.

"In the past 45 days about 110 bodies of people who illegally crossed the border to visit Iraqi holy sites have been handed back to Iran," state radio quoted Javad Salari, head of the coroner's office in the western city of Ilam, as saying.

He did not say whether all the dead were killed by mines.



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Anwaar Kawaz, 36, weeps as her daughter Hadeel, 13, showing wounds in her arm, stands next to her at their home in Baghdad, Iraq on Sunday Aug. 10, 2003. On Aug. 8, Anwaar's husband and three of her children were killed by U.S. forces when an electricity generator blew up and fearing an attack, the soldiers opened fire on the family's car as they were trying to get back home before curfew. Hadeel was injured during the incident.(AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)




Ali, an Iraqi boy wounded when US troops opened fire in a market place in Tikrit, lies in a hospital. Three Iraqi men were killed and two children injured by US gunfire according to the hospital director.(AFP/MARWAN NAAMANI)




A U.S. soldier adjusts U.S. flag just before the start of Sergeant Leonard Simmons from Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 502nd infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Div., memorial service in Mosul, Sunday Aug.10, 2003.Simmons , who was from Clarksville, Tennessee, died of cardiac arrest on Aug.6, 2003, while on duty. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

[sistersofmercy]

1. It's amazing

these reports seem to fall on the deaf ears of the republicans. I saw a picture on BBC of a man arrested in Basra during the beginning of the war, with his son enfolded in his arms, his hand across the little boy's forehead as they baked in the sun behind a barb-wired fence.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. AM Kick

And welcome to DU sistersofmercy. Any relation to the Leonard Cohen song?