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CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- The driver of a Humvee targeted by a car bombing in Afghanistan last year said Thursday he heard distant gunfire after the explosion, testimony that followed his comrades claims that they were fired upon. Sgt. Heriberto Becerra-Bravo said the March 4 blast violently shook his vehicle, and the Humvee's gunner then began firing his M240 machine gun. Becerra-Bravo said he could hear small arms fire in the distance during pauses in the gunner's response. "He was firing in controlled bursts. ... eight to 10 rounds at a time," Becerra-Bravo said. Other servicemen testified Wednesday that the...

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Two Marines involved in a shooting that killed as many as 19 Afghan civilians testified Wednesday that their unit was responding to an ambush so intense that the crossfire took out tree branches as their convoy of Humvees fled from the scene. "You could see branches falling across the road ... all along our route," said Sgt. Benjamin Baker. "We were taking semiautomatic small arms fire all along this road." Baker's testimony followed that of Sgt. Brett Hayes, who told the administrative panel investigating the conduct of two officers involved in the shooting that the convoy...

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- A former Marine testified Tuesday that he thinks Afghans were killed needlessly by his special operations unit after its convoy was attacked by a car bomb. "I really felt there were a lot of people who died who didn't need to," said Nathaniel Travers, a former intelligence sergeant who left the Marines last year. "They were just driving their cars." But Travers, the first witness called at a rarely used administrative fact-finding proceeding that is investigating the conduct of two officers involved, later acknowledged he was unhappy in the Marine Corps and didn't think America should...

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The top American general in Afghanistan has expelled a U.S. Marine special operations company for the way the men responded to an ambush March 4, Marine sources said. Maj. Cliff Gilmore, a spokesman for Marine Special Operations Command, confirmed to The Examiner that the company of 120 Marines is redeploying. He said the decision followed an ambush on the company's convoy by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. A second Marine source said the Marines retaliated and some civilians were killed.

DefendtheDefenders.org raises money and awareness for the defense of soldiers and Marines whose actions in the heat of combat are being second-guessed.

Three years ago, I was leading Marines in Fallujah. Two years ago, with lawyers that many of you helped pay for, I walked into a courtroom at Camp Lejeune to face off against prosecutors in a fight for my life. Today, I am back in the fight, and ask for your help in defending a team of true American heroes. Drawn from the elite ranks of "Force Recon," the hand-picked men of Marine Special Operations (MARSOC) are literally the best of the best, and instead of being honored they are being investigated for simply doing their job. Our commandos became...

The U.S. military took the extraordinary step of apologizing for the deadly shooting in Afghanistan earlier this year by Marines that left 19 civilians dead and another 50 wounded. One senior official who has seen the results of the preliminary investigation into the incident says it was "as bad as Haditha," a reference to the 2005 shooting deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians that resulted in three Marines being charged with murder.Like Haditha, the incident was triggered by an explosion targeting a Marine convoy. Witnesses allege the Marines then fired upon civilians gathered at a roadside bazaar and continued to fire...

After it became clear last year that several marines had killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, following an attack on their convoy of Humvees, the Marine Corps, which had initially played down the massacre, began an offensive of a different kind.Last May, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps at the time, went to Iraq to express deep concern to his marines and to reinforce what he called the "core values" that required them to respond to danger with thoughtful precision.But almost a year later, marines killed at least 10 civilians in Afghanistan in an episode that...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The U.S. military asserted that an American soldier was justified in erasing journalists' footage of the aftermath of a homicide bombing and shooting in Afghanistan last week, saying publication could have compromised a military investigation and led to false public conclusions.The comments came Friday in response to an Associated Press protest that a U.S. soldier had forced two freelance journalists working for the U.S.-based news agency to delete photos and video at the scene of violence March 4 in Barikaw, eastern Afghanistan. At least eight Afghans were killed and 34 wounded."Investigative integrity is one circumstance when civil...

How much force can a squad of Marines generate in self-defense before it is considered "excessive"?That question is now out of the hands of Marine officers and noncoms in the field. The question will be decided in courts-martial.This is absolutely unprecedented. Applying the concept of "excessive force" to men under fire is absurd enough. But turning "excessive force" into murder charges is the beginning of the end of our war against Islamofascism.Seeing the President of the United States labeled a liar and a war criminal by the media for seven years ought to give the DoD a clue. The media...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A U.S. Marine unit broke international humanitarian law by using excessive force during a shooting spree last month that left 12 people dead, an Afghan human rights group said in a report Saturday. The troops fired indiscriminately at pedestrians, people in cars, public buses and taxis in six different locations along a 10-mile stretch of road in Nangahar province after an explosives-rigged minivan crashed into their convoy on March 4, according to the report by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission. Six people were killed near the blast site, while the other six died on the road as...

KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. Marine unit broke international humanitarian law by using excessive force during a shooting spree last month that left 12 people dead, an Afghan human rights group said in a report Saturday. The troops fired indiscriminately at pedestrians, people in cars, public buses and taxis in six different locations along a 10-mile stretch of road in Nangahar province after an explosives-rigged minivan crashed into their convoy on March 4, according to the report by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission. Six people were killed near the blast site, while the other six died on the road as...

WASHINGTON - Marines accused of shooting and killing civilians after a suicide bombing in Afghanistan are under U.S. investigation, and their entire unit has been ordered to leave the country, officials said Friday. Army Maj. Gen. Francis H. Kearney III, head of Special Operations Command Central, ordered the unit of about 120 Marines out of Afghanistan and initiated an investigation into the March 4 incident, said Lt. Col. Lou Leto, spokesman at Kearney's command headquarters in Tampa, Fla. It is highly unusual for any combat unit, either special operations or conventional, to have its mission cut short. A spokesman for...