american soldiers shoot and kill 5 children
Posted: 4/1/2003, 10:58 am
http://www.msnbc.com/news/893527.asp?cp1=1
Civilian shooting toll may climb
MSNBC staff and wire reports
U.S. troops shot and killed at least seven Iraqi civilians -- some of them children -- in a vehicle at a checkpoint Monday in southern Iraq when the driver did not stop as ordered, U.S. Central Command said. Later, on Tuesday morning, U.S. Marines shot and killed an unarmed Iraqi who drove his pickup truck at speed toward another checkpoint in the south.
THE FIRST INCIDENT took place Monday at a checkpoint manned by soldiers of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division on a highway between Karbala and Najaf, U.S. Central Command said in a statement Monday night.
When the van failed to stop, soldiers fired warning shots and then shots into the vehicle's engine, neither of which stopped it, the statement said.
Monday's shooting illustrated the difficulty U.S. forces face in making split-second decisions about whether approaching Iraqis are friends or foes. The 3rd Infantry lost four soldiers Saturday at another checkpoint when an Iraqi soldier dressed as a civilian detonated a car bomb.
A Marine involved in the second incident, which occurred Tuesday morning outside the southern town of Shatra, told Reuters that he feared that he and his compatriots were also being attacked by a suicide bomber. Marines the white truck with with bullets after it sped toward their roadblock on the main highway near An Nasiriyah, apparently oblivious to barbed wire strewn across the road.
The driver was killed, and his passenger was badly wounded. The truck was not loaded, and neither of the men was in uniform or armed, Marines said.
Also on Tuesday, U.S. soldiers in Kuwait shot at two cars which tried to drive through a gate leading to a U.S. base shortly after midnight, local time. One car was stopped and a man, who claimed to be a Kuwaiti army captain, was detained. The other car sped into the night.
KARBALA CHECKPOINT
Central Command said in its statement that a total of 13 women and children were in the van that was attacked Monday near Karbala. But The Washington Post, whose reporter is traveling with the 3rd Infantry, said that 15 passengers were in the van and that 10 were killed, five of them children who appeared to be younger than age 5.
One of the wounded was a man not expected to live, the Post reported in its Tuesday editions.
The newspaper described the vehicle as a four-wheel-drive Toyota crammed with the Iraqis' personal belongings.
Central Command said initial reports indicated that the soldiers followed the rules of engagement to protect themselves. "In light of recent terrorist attacks by the Iraqi regime, the soldiers exercised considerable restraint to avoid the unnecessary loss of life," the statement said.
The Post report, however, quoted a 3rd Infantry Division captain as saying the checkpoint crew did not fire warning shots quickly enough.
The Post described a captain watching the incident through binoculars and ordering the soldiers by radio to fire a warning shot first and then shoot a 7.62mm machine-gun round into the vehicle's radiator. When the vehicle kept coming, the captain ordered the soldiers to "stop him!"
'YOU JUST ... KILLED A FAMILY'
About a dozen shots of 25mm cannon fire were heard from one or more of the platoon's Bradley fighting vehicles, the Post said.
The captain then shouted over the radio at the platoon leader, "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!" according to the Post.
"It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I hope I never see it again," Sgt. Mario Manzano, 26, an Army medic with Bravo Company of the division's 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, told the Post.
U.S. medics evacuated survivors of the shooting to U.S. lines south of Karbala, according to the Post. One woman was unhurt. Another, who had superficial head wounds, was flown by helicopter to a U.S. field hospital when it was learned that she was pregnant, the Post said.
U.S. troops gave three survivors permission to return to the vehicle and recover the bodies of their loved ones, the newspaper said. Medics gave the group 10 body bags, the newspaper reported, and U.S. officials offered an unspecified amount of money to compensate them.
TROOPS DEFENDED
A top-ranking Pentagon official said Monday night that the troops at the checkpoint "absolutely did the right thing."
"They tried to warn the vehicle to stop. It did not stop," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on PBS's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer." "And it was unusual that that vehicle would be full of only women and that the driver was a woman. So we need to find out why it was that they were acting the way they did."
Iraq has emphasized civilian casualties to fuel opposition to the war, including organizing a tour for foreign correspondents last week of a Baghdad market it says was hit by a U.S. cruise missile.
Iraq's ambassador to Russia, Abbas Khalaf, said Monday that 589 Iraqi non-combatants had been killed in the war and that 4,500 others had been wounded. There is no way to confirm or disprove the reports.
'A THREAT UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT'
With many troops jittery after Saturday's suicide attack, U.S. officers said they were being especially careful as they made contact with civilians whose political loyalties were unclear.
"A civilian is always a threat until proven innocent," said Lt. Jason Davis of the 101st Airborne Division. "This is combat. We are in a hostile country. Even if we are sitting on a corner and eating food, this is still combat."
The suicide attack near Najaf raised a new threat for U.S. troops, who already face guerrilla-style resistance from Iraqi paramilitary fighters who wear the same clothing as civilians and can melt into villages after staging lightning raids.
In the small town of Kifl, where hundreds of Iraqis were killed in vicious street fighting, wary U.S. troops tried to balance friendliness and firmness Sunday as they fanned out to do house-to-house searches.
Civilians and U.S. soldiers eyed one another warily around town. The Iraqis waved white flags or held their hands in the air when they ventured out for water or to check on their families.
"Security is the Number 1 priority, but you do whatever you can to be friendly. You don't want to be mean," Sgt. Malcolm Brown said as he waited for a family of 12, including a man in a wheelchair, to approach his checkpoint.
"You have to be stern but friendly at the same time."
TOO FEW INTERPRETERS
There is ample reason for caution. Troops found rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles in many homes in Kifl, but the combatants had melted away. Two prisoners were captured without a fight, including an Iraqi army major.
The U.S. effort to win Iraqi hearts and minds has clearly been weakened by a dearth of interpreters. Soldiers bark orders in English or use sign language to tell civilians to show them what they are carrying inside their bags.
Davis, whose unit had just found a booby-trapped AK-47 in one home, said the dual goals of ensuring security of his men and getting on with civilians posed a delicate balancing act.
"It's a good cop-bad cop scenario. The troops have to be the bad guys, whose only focus is their own security. And the leadership has to show the civilians a lot of respect," he said, adding that he approached civilians bowing, touching his heart with his hand and offering them water.
The caution, it appears, cuts both ways. Iraqi civilians here say they have not had major problems with the searches, but they worry about how soldiers will treat women -- an important cultural consideration in a Muslim country.
And many are deeply suspicious of the invaders.
"The Iraqis do not love foreigners coming to our country with their guns," said Nasir Hasnawi, a middle-aged man who said he had fled his home in Baghdad to stay with relatives, only to find this town rocked by major clashes.
"They say they will leave when they change the government, but we do not believe them. I think they want our oil."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
MSNBC Terms, Conditions and Privacy ©2003
Civilian shooting toll may climb
MSNBC staff and wire reports
U.S. troops shot and killed at least seven Iraqi civilians -- some of them children -- in a vehicle at a checkpoint Monday in southern Iraq when the driver did not stop as ordered, U.S. Central Command said. Later, on Tuesday morning, U.S. Marines shot and killed an unarmed Iraqi who drove his pickup truck at speed toward another checkpoint in the south.
THE FIRST INCIDENT took place Monday at a checkpoint manned by soldiers of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division on a highway between Karbala and Najaf, U.S. Central Command said in a statement Monday night.
When the van failed to stop, soldiers fired warning shots and then shots into the vehicle's engine, neither of which stopped it, the statement said.
Monday's shooting illustrated the difficulty U.S. forces face in making split-second decisions about whether approaching Iraqis are friends or foes. The 3rd Infantry lost four soldiers Saturday at another checkpoint when an Iraqi soldier dressed as a civilian detonated a car bomb.
A Marine involved in the second incident, which occurred Tuesday morning outside the southern town of Shatra, told Reuters that he feared that he and his compatriots were also being attacked by a suicide bomber. Marines the white truck with with bullets after it sped toward their roadblock on the main highway near An Nasiriyah, apparently oblivious to barbed wire strewn across the road.
The driver was killed, and his passenger was badly wounded. The truck was not loaded, and neither of the men was in uniform or armed, Marines said.
Also on Tuesday, U.S. soldiers in Kuwait shot at two cars which tried to drive through a gate leading to a U.S. base shortly after midnight, local time. One car was stopped and a man, who claimed to be a Kuwaiti army captain, was detained. The other car sped into the night.
KARBALA CHECKPOINT
Central Command said in its statement that a total of 13 women and children were in the van that was attacked Monday near Karbala. But The Washington Post, whose reporter is traveling with the 3rd Infantry, said that 15 passengers were in the van and that 10 were killed, five of them children who appeared to be younger than age 5.
One of the wounded was a man not expected to live, the Post reported in its Tuesday editions.
The newspaper described the vehicle as a four-wheel-drive Toyota crammed with the Iraqis' personal belongings.
Central Command said initial reports indicated that the soldiers followed the rules of engagement to protect themselves. "In light of recent terrorist attacks by the Iraqi regime, the soldiers exercised considerable restraint to avoid the unnecessary loss of life," the statement said.
The Post report, however, quoted a 3rd Infantry Division captain as saying the checkpoint crew did not fire warning shots quickly enough.
The Post described a captain watching the incident through binoculars and ordering the soldiers by radio to fire a warning shot first and then shoot a 7.62mm machine-gun round into the vehicle's radiator. When the vehicle kept coming, the captain ordered the soldiers to "stop him!"
'YOU JUST ... KILLED A FAMILY'
About a dozen shots of 25mm cannon fire were heard from one or more of the platoon's Bradley fighting vehicles, the Post said.
The captain then shouted over the radio at the platoon leader, "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!" according to the Post.
"It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I hope I never see it again," Sgt. Mario Manzano, 26, an Army medic with Bravo Company of the division's 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, told the Post.
U.S. medics evacuated survivors of the shooting to U.S. lines south of Karbala, according to the Post. One woman was unhurt. Another, who had superficial head wounds, was flown by helicopter to a U.S. field hospital when it was learned that she was pregnant, the Post said.
U.S. troops gave three survivors permission to return to the vehicle and recover the bodies of their loved ones, the newspaper said. Medics gave the group 10 body bags, the newspaper reported, and U.S. officials offered an unspecified amount of money to compensate them.
TROOPS DEFENDED
A top-ranking Pentagon official said Monday night that the troops at the checkpoint "absolutely did the right thing."
"They tried to warn the vehicle to stop. It did not stop," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on PBS's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer." "And it was unusual that that vehicle would be full of only women and that the driver was a woman. So we need to find out why it was that they were acting the way they did."
Iraq has emphasized civilian casualties to fuel opposition to the war, including organizing a tour for foreign correspondents last week of a Baghdad market it says was hit by a U.S. cruise missile.
Iraq's ambassador to Russia, Abbas Khalaf, said Monday that 589 Iraqi non-combatants had been killed in the war and that 4,500 others had been wounded. There is no way to confirm or disprove the reports.
'A THREAT UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT'
With many troops jittery after Saturday's suicide attack, U.S. officers said they were being especially careful as they made contact with civilians whose political loyalties were unclear.
"A civilian is always a threat until proven innocent," said Lt. Jason Davis of the 101st Airborne Division. "This is combat. We are in a hostile country. Even if we are sitting on a corner and eating food, this is still combat."
The suicide attack near Najaf raised a new threat for U.S. troops, who already face guerrilla-style resistance from Iraqi paramilitary fighters who wear the same clothing as civilians and can melt into villages after staging lightning raids.
In the small town of Kifl, where hundreds of Iraqis were killed in vicious street fighting, wary U.S. troops tried to balance friendliness and firmness Sunday as they fanned out to do house-to-house searches.
Civilians and U.S. soldiers eyed one another warily around town. The Iraqis waved white flags or held their hands in the air when they ventured out for water or to check on their families.
"Security is the Number 1 priority, but you do whatever you can to be friendly. You don't want to be mean," Sgt. Malcolm Brown said as he waited for a family of 12, including a man in a wheelchair, to approach his checkpoint.
"You have to be stern but friendly at the same time."
TOO FEW INTERPRETERS
There is ample reason for caution. Troops found rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles in many homes in Kifl, but the combatants had melted away. Two prisoners were captured without a fight, including an Iraqi army major.
The U.S. effort to win Iraqi hearts and minds has clearly been weakened by a dearth of interpreters. Soldiers bark orders in English or use sign language to tell civilians to show them what they are carrying inside their bags.
Davis, whose unit had just found a booby-trapped AK-47 in one home, said the dual goals of ensuring security of his men and getting on with civilians posed a delicate balancing act.
"It's a good cop-bad cop scenario. The troops have to be the bad guys, whose only focus is their own security. And the leadership has to show the civilians a lot of respect," he said, adding that he approached civilians bowing, touching his heart with his hand and offering them water.
The caution, it appears, cuts both ways. Iraqi civilians here say they have not had major problems with the searches, but they worry about how soldiers will treat women -- an important cultural consideration in a Muslim country.
And many are deeply suspicious of the invaders.
"The Iraqis do not love foreigners coming to our country with their guns," said Nasir Hasnawi, a middle-aged man who said he had fled his home in Baghdad to stay with relatives, only to find this town rocked by major clashes.
"They say they will leave when they change the government, but we do not believe them. I think they want our oil."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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