Haditha Reporter Was Jailed By US, Shares Name With Source

Sweetness & Light ^ | June 1, 2006 | N/A

[Sam Hill]

Given the breathless coverage (actually repetition of the same paltry facts) from our one party media about the civilian deaths in Haditha, I am surprised that we have heard nothing about the curious background of one of the first journalists to report the story.

It turns out he might not have felt the kindliest intentions towards the US, having been imprisoned for five months only weeks before his Haditha scoop.

And, in fact, he has since been detained by the US again, for two weeks -- in fact, being only released today.

From Reuters [excerpted]:

Reuters journalist Ali al-Mashhadani (R), a television cameraman, embraces a colleague in Baghdad January 15, 2006. Mashhadani was released from U.S. military custody at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad on Thursday after 12 days in detention.

Reuters journalist freed in Iraq

By Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi journalist working for Reuters was released from U.S. military custody at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad on Thursday after 12 days in detention.

Ali al-Mashhadani, 37, was arrested by U.S. Marines in his home town of Ramadi on May 20 when he went to a U.S. base to retrieve Reuters telephones taken from him earlier that week.

He spent five months in U.S. custody last year before being released without charge in January.

Though again no specific allegation or charge was leveled against him, U.S. officials said last week he was held as a security threat. Marines interrogated him intensively about his work as a journalist in the restive Sunni province of Anbar...

As many as seven journalists for international media groups were held by the U.S. military in Iraq at one stage last year. One such journalist, from Ramadi, is currently being held.

Mashhadani, who reports and provides video and pictures, is one of a small number of journalists providing news from Anbar province, where U.S. Marines and Sunni Arab insurgents, including al Qaeda militants, are locked in a fierce conflict...

Among Mashhadani's recent stories was reporting from the town of Haditha in March. Following Time magazine's revelation of accusations that U.S. Marines shot dead 24 civilians there in November, he filmed fresh interviews with local officials and residents that were widely used by international media...

So after five months in prison at the hands of the US, and being released in Janauary, Mr. al-Mashhadani stumbles upon the story of Haditha in March.

Here is al-Mashhadani's original report on Haditha from Reuters [excerpted]:

Iraqi residents say bodies in video from U.S. raid

By Ali al-Mashhadani

Tue 21 Mar 2006

HADITHA, Iraq (Reuters) - A video of civilians who may have been killed by U.S. Marines in an Iraqi town in November showed residents describing a rampage by U.S. soldiers that left a trail of bullet-riddled bodies and destruction.

A copy of the video, given to Reuters by Iraq's Hammurabi Organisation for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy, showed corpses lined up at the Haditha morgue. The chief doctor at Haditha's hospital, Waleed al-Obaidi, said the victims had bullet wounds in the head and chest.

Most residents interviewed by Reuters in Haditha on Tuesday echoed accusations by residents in the video that U.S. Marines attacked houses after their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb.

They said the Marines opened fire on houses. "I saw a soldier standing outside a house and he opened fire on the house," said one resident, who did not want to be identified...

Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad, is in Anbar province, an area that has seen much activity by Sunni Arab insurgents whose campaign to topple the Iraqi government has killed thousands of U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians.

On November 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that, on the previous day, a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops had killed eight insurgents, he added.

U.S. military officials have since confirmed to Reuters that that version of the events of November 19 was wrong and that the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead.

TRUCK PILED WITH CORPSES

Time magazine said this week the video of the corpses it provided to the military in January had prompted the revision.

Accusations that American soldiers often kill innocent people have fuelled anger at the occupation among Iraqis over the past three years.

The video given to Reuters shows bodies piled in the back of a white pickup truck outside the morgue. Among them was a girl who appeared to be about three years old...

Some residents blamed U.S. President George W. Bush, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and President Jalal Talabani. "Is this the democracy Allawi, Talabani and Bush are talking about?" one resident asked.

Abdel Rahman al-Mashhadani, head of Hammurabi, said U.S. Marines had killed 15 people in Haditha after the roadside bomb attack. The group's Haditha branch said it got the video from a local man.

Mashhadani said he had brought the case to the attention of the United Nations office in Baghdad. "These violations of human rights happen every day in Iraq," he told Reuters...

This account is pretty much the same account that is still being parroted throughout our one party media worldwide now two months later. There are several particulars which are just stated as fact, such as:

U.S. military officials have since confirmed to Reuters that that version of the events of November 19 was wrong and that the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead.

This assertion has been repeated in almost every subsequent account. But I have never seen any confirmation of this from the US military or any named officials.

And what is the relationship if any between this news-making journalist Ali al-Mashhadani, and Abdel Rahman al-Mashhadani of Iraq's Hammurabi Organisation for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy?

The latter al-Mashhanis is the person who first brought these "human rights violations" to public attention.

Perhaps al-Mashhadani is a very common name around those parts. (Probably being a kind of tribal or regional descriptor.) But what are the odds?

And how odd it is that Abdel Rahman al-Mashhadani just happened to be given a video by an unnamed local. And that he then turned it over to Ali al-Mashhadani who just happens to make videos for Reuters.

And had anyone ever heard of Iraq's Hammurabi Organisation for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy before this?

But even leaving their similar names aside, did Ali al-Mashhadani have an axe to grind against the US after having just been released after being held for five months by the Americans?

Did it color his reporting, which is still the centerpiece of every report we have on the Haditha deaths to date?

[jazusamo]

Great work by both you and Sam. Congrats to you both.

[jazusamo]

Congrats to you and Velveeta, good work.

[livius]

It's not the same name.

Too bad. Although even being in the same family (if he is) would probably indicate something about his political opinions and objectives.

[Velveeta]

Thank you.
Nobody defames our military and gets away with it on freerepublic.

[daku]

... rampage by U.S. soldiers that left a trail of bullet-riddled bodies and destruction.

... the victims had bullet wounds in the head and chest.

which was it ?

[spunkets]

"This assertion has been repeated in almost every subsequent account. But I have never seen any confirmation of this from the US military or any named officials."

Apparently the original Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi did say that the families were killed by the roadside bomb. I've been looking since Sun. When Time asked in Jan, they were still stuck with that info. I think all they had to do was to look at the original field reports and make a correction. The Marines involved don't deny they shot them, so no autopsy is needed.

A Reuters article follows. It still says they took fire immediately after the blast. The 8 dead insurgents consist of 4 from the taxi and 4 from the 4th house.

November 20, 2005

Roadside bomb kills 15 Iraqis, U.S. Marine in Haditha (excerpt)

HADITHA, Iraq (Reuters) - A roadside bomb that killed a U.S. Marine in the restive town of Haditha on Saturday also killed 15 Iraqi civilians and led to intense clashes with insurgents, the U.S. military said on Sunday. The powerful bomb detonated as a U.S. military convoy was passing through the town, a militant stronghold on the Euphrates river about 220 km northwest of Baghdad. Immediately after the blast, gunmen opened fire on the convoy, the U.S. military said in a statement. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another(taxi driver) in a firefight.

[mjaneangels@aolcom]

"I've asked this and not had an answer yet, so I'm asking on all the Haditha threads:

Was any type of autopsy done? Don't Muslims bury their dead within 24 hrs? Any ballistic tests done? Is all that in the investigation? Anyone heard anything about this?"

You might want to ask Sally'sConcerns about the reply she made here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1641124/posts?page=181#181

[USMCPOP]

Believe this John Murtha can not and will never attend a Marine reunion again. The folks I have talked to call him a traitor.

Not Johnhad Murthammed? No way! Must be a different guy. Common name, though. I think we should celebrate. What is that old custom, a blanket party, or something like that?

[Pikachu_Dad]

Hmmm

http://www.seconddraft.org/

[concretebob]

BUMP-A-ROONI-IN-A-PETUNIA

[daku]

then I call B.S.

the Marines are INNOCENT till PROVEN guilty

[bobsunshine]

Here are some other items the MSM doesn't report (H/T Macsmind)

------------------------------------------------------
Again, things may not be as they seem.

"SAN DIEGO - A Marine captain who was relieved of command after members of his battalion were accused of killing civilians in Haditha, Iraq, denied any role in the slayings and complained that he had become a “political casualty.”

“It makes my blood boil to see my name lumped in with this massacre, when I was in a different city not playing any role in this incident,” Capt. James Kimber told The Associated Press.

Kimber, 33, of Fountain Hills, Ariz., was one of three officers reassigned to new duties last month for what the Marines said was “a lack of confidence in their leadership abilities.” None of the three officers has been charged with wrongdoing.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the 24 killings Nov. 19 were criminal, and whether the Marines involved and their commanding officers tried to hide the truth.

Defusing an explosive situation
Kimber said he first learned about the shootings in February when he heard that a Time magazine reporter was asking questions about civilian deaths.

Kimber said he heard nothing about a civilian massacre during city council meetings and talks with local leaders.

“It would have been huge, there would have been no question it would have filtered down to us,” he said. “We reported no significant atmospheric change as a result of that day.”

Kimber said he was removed because senior commanders at California’s Camp Pendleton were scrambling to defuse an explosive situation."

Say wut? Something ain't right here. Got to do some checking.

http://macsmind.blogspot.com/2006/06/then-again-haditha.html

[Chgogal]

Haditha and now BBC's newly found video.....

What is the US Military going to do if you have these TERRORIST JOURNALISTS months after the fact keep "finding" massacre videos to attack our troops? It will be hard to prove innocence after all the evidence is buried, tampered with etc. This is not a good development and scares the heck out of me. Every week Sunni/BBCABCCBSNBCCNNetc/Human Rights Orgs can manufacture tapes and accuse our troops of massacres a la Jenin. We would be chasing our tail....

[Cannoneer No. 4]

This has been planned for some time. It's no coincidence. Haditha Riots all over Dar al-Islam, much better choreographed and coordinated with the BBC, Reuters and al-Jazeera than the Cartoon riots were, are next.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[angkor]

Just saying that when Reuters, AP, and the MSM send in Western reporters to gather and spew Saddamist/Islamist propaganda, they eventually get busted and are kicked out of Iraq.

That's what happened to Sites after his fabricated and hysterical "unarmed civilian" report. He was de-embedded and unable to do any reporting almost instantly. So he left Iraq.

However, Reuters and AP like the locals, because they side with and report on the "insurgents", which is the side they prefer to cover. I've read that American reporters think being embedded is "covering the other side," i.e., the U.S. military being "the other side".

[freema]

"Does it make sense that ALL the victims had "bullet wounds to the head and chest" according to the doc, but the 10 year old survivor Eman, had shrapnel wounds on her left thigh?"

It does. If a grenade, as reported, was thrown -
which exploded a propane tank, as reported-
that would confirm the original report of deaths by IED.

[Wuli]

We do not have all the facts yet, so even what I have to say is speculation - but how many times in the past three years have our troops "fired" at some civilian looking target, BECAUSE THEIR WAS GUNFIRE COMING FROM INSIDE and those firing were using the civilians present as their "shields" and as culpable deniability "evidence" when the shooting was over - "see, the Americans were just shooting at "civilians".

Is that what happened? No idea. But that has happened many times over in this war.

[eyespysomething]

Thank all of you for the replies. When I went to bed last night, I was frustrated that I still hadn't had anyone comment on it, so thanks again.

Spunkets-

I know the Marines aren't denying the were in a firefight, but some of the claims (woman shot in head execution style while begging for life over a child) could easily be dismissed (or proven true) by autopsies and ballistics testing.

AliVeritas- I didn't catch "the witness said they were outside and all the bullet holes are inside" and that is interesting.

MJ- Thanks for the link to Sally'sConcerns post regarding the same thing.

While I know bad things can happen in war, I am trying very hard to not prejudge on snippets of info, some from questionable sources.

[daybreakcoming]

Without ballistics tests, how can "they" can prove anything against the Marines? It's not like the terrorists don't use guns....maybe even US-issued guns. Would just be he said/she said.