9 Americans, including 4 civilians, killed in Iraq: bodies mutilated, dragged through streets

msnbc.msn.com ^ | 1:06 p.m. ET March 31, 2004 | NBC, MSNBC and news services

[Destro]

9 Americans, including 4 civilians, killed in Iraq Contractors' bodies mutilated, dragged through Fallujah's streets

NBC, MSNBC and news services

Updated: 1:06 p.m. ET March 31, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In one of the bloodiest and most horrifying days since the end of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, five U.S. troops and four American civilian contractors were killed in separate attacks in the Sunni Triangle west of Baghdad. After ambushing the vehicle carrying the civilian contractors in Fallujah, jubilant Iraqis burned and mutilated the dead, then dragged two corpses through the streets and hung them from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

The brutal treatment of the bodies occurred after the contractors were killed in a rebel attack on their two SUVs in the city about 35 miles west of Baghdad, scene of some of the worst violence on both sides of the conflict since the beginning of the American occupation a year ago.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said at a briefing in Baghdad that it was not known what the coalition contractors were doing in Fallujah — apparently without a military escort — when the attack occurred.

U.S. officials, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said that all four contractors were Americans who worked for Blackwater USA of Moyock, N.C. The officials did not confirm reports from the scene that a woman was among the dead.

Blackwater USA supplies security guards to the Coalition Provisional Authority and has provided protection for Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer, among other coalition officials. The officials said it was not immediately clear what the four people killed Wednesday were doing in Fallujah.

Five U.S. troops killed in bombing The killings of the contractors came shortly after five U.S. troops died when their military vehicle ran over a bomb in Malahma, about 12 miles to the northwest of Fallujah, among the reed-lined roads through some of Iraq’s richest farmland.

[Crossbow Eel]

Here's the video TV won't show you !

[Little_Fish_In_Big_Pond]

Oh my God... It's horrible :(

[Bogey78O]

We have all of thier faces. We need to round them up then send them to Northern Iraq where they'll spend the rest of their lives in prison doing hard labor for murder.

[Bogey78O]

We have all of thier faces. We need to round them up then send them to Northern Iraq where they'll spend the rest of their lives in prison doing hard labor for murder.

Every single one all the way down to the kids. And those who drug the bodies should get the death penalty for participating in the murder.

[Integrityrocks]

Oh yes... but the anti-war people are assuring us that we just need to pack up and go home and leave these soldiers of SATAN to murder and fagedabout OUR MEN who have died in the name of democracy for the Iraquies.

[Defiant]

Why the hell is Falluja still standing?

[xrp]

Fallujah April 2, 2004

[GOP_1900AD]

There are forces, ones which seek to defeat the West, and see the USA become a third rate power, who are trying with all their might to turn Iraq into another Vietnam. Our biggest mistake with Vietnam (not to mention every other proxy war we've been in since WW2) was our failure to attack the sponsoring states with vigor. Let us not make the same mistake again. Do we have the courage to demolish the sponsoring states?

[Righty1]

Let Iraq split into 3 countries and the Sunnis will get what they deserve i.e. poverty and violence.

[mgc1122]

Shoot every mother dancing on the wrecks ... they'll have to celebrate murder in private - the glorification and subsequent publication of these photos without consequence only encourages more a**holes.

Stupidity - particularly what appears to be culturally based over there - should be painful if not outright lethal.

[af_vet_1981]

Treat them all as enemy combatants and kill them.

[Dead Corpse]

Kill them. All of them. They are a blight that must be stopped. Use nukes if we have to.

[Argus]

Just give the Kurdish Pesh Merga a weekend to do whatever they choose in Fallujah. We'll never hear from the place again.

[Robe]

LEVEL FALLUJA

[Hatteras]

Blackwater USA

[Destro]

Iraqis chant anti-American slogans on a bridge over the Euphrates River where charred bodies are hanging in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Wednesday March 31 2004. Enraged Iraqis in this hotbed of anti-Americanism killed four foreigners Wednesday, including at least one U.S. national, took the charred bodies from a burning SUV, dragged them through the streets, and hung them from the bridge spanning the Euphrates River. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as charred bodies hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Wednesday, March 31 2004. Enraged Iraqis in this hotbed of anti-Americanism killed four foreigners Wednesday, including at least one U.S. national, took the charred bodies from a burning SUV, dragged them through the streets, and hung them from the bridge. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

[jordan8]

These mercenaries got too cocky and paid the price.

[NC28203]

Wasn't one of the reasons we removed Saddam because he destroyed the villages of his enemies and left them in mass graves? Why would it be okay for us to do this if it was wrong for Saddam?

[yonif]

The US must target the ideology, not just the terrorists, or it will fail in Iraq.