Posted on 08/10/2003 8:37:25 PM PDT by CanadianFella
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The night air hung like a hot wet blanket over the north Baghdad suburb of Slaykh. At 9 p.m., an electrical transformer blew up, plunging the neighborhood into darkness.
American soldiers, apparently fearing a bomb attack, went on alert. Within 45 minutes, six Iraqis trying to get home before the 11 p.m. curfew were shot and killed by U.S. forces.
Anwaar Kawaz, 36, lost her husband and three of four children. "We kept shouting, 'We're a family! Don't shoot!' But no one listened. They kept shooting," she told The Associated Press. She's expecting another child this month.
When asked about Friday's shootings, Lt. Col. Guy Shields, coalition military spokesman, said, "Our checkpoints are usually marked and our soldiers are trained and disciplined. I will check on that. That is serious."
Confronted by daily guerrilla attacks that have claimed 56 American lives since May 1, U.S. troops are on edge. Iraqis complain that many innocent people have died at surprise U.S. checkpoints thrown up on dark streets shortly before the curfew. Drivers hurrying home say they don't see the soldiers or hear their orders to stop.
The Kawaz family left the home of Anwaar's parents on Bilal Habashi Street at 9:15 p.m. for the 10-minute drive home. They had traveled only a half-mile when they reached the intersection where they said the American bullets took their terrible toll.
A few yards in front of them, two soldiers standing near two Humvees were shooting at the family's white Volkswagen, she said. Two other soldiers near a Humvee to the right of the car also fired, she said.
Witnesses told the AP one of the soldiers fell to the ground screaming in pain, apparently a victim of friendly fire.
"They killed us. There was no signal. Nothing at all. We didn't see anything but armored cars," Anwaar said Sunday, two days after the confrontation.
"Our headlights were on. He (her husband) didn't have time to put his foot on the brake. They kept shooting. He was shot in the forehead. I was still sitting next to him. I got out of the car to get help. I was shouting, 'Help me! Help me!' No one came."
Witnesses said her husband, Adel Kawaz, survived for at least an hour, still sitting in the car after being hit in the head and back.
Ibrahim Arslan, whose house is on the corner where the Kawaz car came under fire, said Kawaz cried out for help.
Arslan said he and a neighbor tried to remove the wounded Kawaz from the car, but the door was jammed. Then they fled when automatic rifle fire again split the air.
"The next day we heard he had died," Arslan said.
Ali Taha, who lives across the street, said Haydar Kawaz, 18, was sitting up in the back of the car with a bullet wound in his head. His sister, 17-year-old Olaa, slumped dead into his arms.
When the shooting stopped and the American soldiers were gone, Taha said, he and other neighbors ventured out about 11 p.m. and took the bodies of the brother and sister from the car, placed them on the pavement and covered them with a sheet.
The Americans had taken the bodies of Adel, the husband, and another child, 8-year-old Mirvet. Two days later, the family still did not know where the bodies were taken.
A fourth child, a 13-year-old Hadeel, survived.
"I was sitting in the middle, between my brother Haydar and sister Olaa," Hadeel said, her head bandaged.
"I felt blood coming down my head. I tried to drag myself out of the car. An American pulled me out. I kept telling them that my father and my brother were in the car. There was a translator with them.
"My father was shouting, 'We are still alive!' but no went to help him.
"The Americans told me to go with them but I was afraid they would hurt me. I didn't trust them. So I ran to my grandparents' house," Hadeel said. She told the story sitting in her grandparents' home, crying quietly, surrounded by family.
Lt. Sean McLaughlin, stationed at a base near Slaykh, could only express sympathy, although he said his unit was not involved.
"No one feels worse than us. We want to build a safe Iraq (news - web sites) for the Iraqis. It's a difficult situation here," McLaughlin said.
A few blocks from where the car was shot up, 19-year-old Sayf Ali was shot and killed as he drove home with a cousin and a friend. He, too, didn't see the American checkpoint, survivors in the car said. Soldiers opened fire on the blue Opel station wagon, which kept moving after Ali was shot. The cousin and the friend jumped out. Soldiers kept firing until the car caught fire incinerating Ali's body, according to one of the witnesses, Arslan.
About the same time nearby, Ali Salman, 31, was driving home, also unaware of the unannounced American checkpoints. He apparently didn't see the soldiers either and was killed.
Ghaleb Laftah, 24, who was sitting in the back of Salman's Honda, and Wisam Sabri, sitting in the front passenger seat, were wounded.
"There was no light. We didn't see the Americans," said Laftah, limping from a leg injury as he walked to Salman's wake that was being held under a tent on Bilal Habashi Street.
"We didn't hurt anyone. We didn't break the law," Laftah said, speaking with difficulty because of four broken teeth from the shooting.
"My son, ... the Americans killed him," said Salman's father, Hikmat, who broke down in sobs. "He was on his way home and was caught up in the shooting. He was afraid, got out of the car and they still shot him. He was frightened, then he died. I only have one (son)," he said.
Family members were also holding a wake for Sayf Ali. The men sat under a tent outside the house and the women were indoors, according to Iraqi tradition.
Sabah Azawmi, an uncle and a Sunni Muslim, said his tribe would seek revenge on the Americans.
"They set fire to the car while he was inside," said Azawmi.
"They are terrified of the Iraqis. If they weren't afraid, they wouldn't behave this way," he said.
But Hikmat Salman, Ali Salman's father and a Shiite Muslim, said he was not interested in revenge. He said he would leave that to God.
The Kawaz family, also Shiites, also said they would leave revenge to God.
"I wish Saddam (Hussein) would return and kill all Americans," Anwaar Kawaz said. Under Saddam, "we used to go out at one in the morning. We went out at 9 now and they killed us.
"I want to drink Bush's blood. They are all criminals," she said, beating her chest.
More deaths there than in iraq.
You know the rules you screw up you die.
BTW have you ever sat on a road bloack at night and have a vehcile moving towards you and won't stop, I have bye bye.
A little tip for ya: Try shouting it in English next time.
And the similarities are...? Not the climate, not the terrain, not a civil war, not a lineless conflict, not a containment policy.
We never took out the opposing government in Viet Nam as we did here.
So how is this like Viet Nam?
SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
I can hear Rimsky-Korsakov (Opus 35) in the background.
But maybe the name should be: SCHEHEREZADE FARAMANAZI.
Several people point note that the report is one-sided, implying that the reporter is at fault. No one seems willing to speculate the reporter may have sought a military response, but none of the commanders wanted to comment about such an obvious atrocity.
Terriergal suggests it was the civilians own fault for getting shot, because some Iraqies are attacking troops, so it should be OK to shoot civilians as a sort of payback.
Ursus arctos horribilis apparently didn't read the story, and again blames the victims (some of them dead) for running into the bullets. Ursus missed the part of the article where it was explained that the victims ran into unannounced, mobile roadblocks at night before curfew, and they didn't even know it was a checkpoint until it was too late.
dwd1 suggests "drivers ed" to solved the problem of our troops shoting unarmed, innocent Iraqi civilians. dwd1 casts doubt on the report because none of the shooters were willing, or perhaps allowed, to talk about it.
But the winner has to be frostbit, who actually suggests that it was Iraqis who shot the civilians, Iraqis in US uniforms driving US Humvees. Just can't get his head around scared, trigger happy troops who have been in the field too long. Can't imagine any US tropps perpetuating such an atrocity, so it must be those crafty Iraqis shooting their own people again.
The reality is someone screwed up, badly, and now commanders on the ground are going to scurry around to make sure there are no repercussions. The families will get $2500 per dead family member, $500 per injured family member (can you imagine getting $2500 in compensation if someone shot your daughter?). And we wonder why they attack our troops.
Second, you ignore the part about the explosion just prior to the car arriving on the scene.
What would you think about a car coming down the road and ignoring orders to stop in this situation, just after an explosion, and a day after a car bomb went off?
Trigger happy, or prudent?
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