String of Explosions Kills 50 in Iraq: "Secondary Blasts Place Rescuers at Risk; 3 U.S. Soldiers Among Dead | By Naseer Nouri and Bassam Sebti | Washington Post Foreign Service | Saturday, April 30, 2005; Page A01
BAGHDAD, April 29 -- After four waves of bombs, suicide attacks and mortars detonated Friday in the Adhamiyah neighborhood in the capital, a woman trapped in a charred, overturned van and cradling an infant in her arms screamed for help. But help was slow in coming. Security forces in some areas held back ambulances for more than an hour, fearful of more explosions aimed at rescuers."
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Terrified US soldiers are still killing civilians with impunity, while the dead go uncounted
News: "Terrified US soldiers are still killing civilians with impunity, while the dead go uncounted | By Patrick Cockburn | 24 April 2005
An American patrol roared past us with the soldiers gesturing furiously with their guns for traffic to keep back on an overpass in central Baghdad. A black car with three young men in it did not stop in time and a soldier fired several shots from his machine gun into its engine.
The driver and his friends were not hit, but many Iraqis do not survive casual encounters with US soldiers. It is very easy to be accidentally killed in Iraq. US soldiers treat everybody as a potential suicide bomber. If they are right they have saved their lives and if they are wrong they face no penalty.
"We should end the immunity of US soldiers here," says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish politician who argues that the failure to prosecute American soldiers who have killed civilians is one of the reasons why the occupation became so unpopular so fast. He admits, however, that this is extremely unlikely to happen given the US attitude to any sanctions against its own forces.
Every Iraqi has stories of friends or relatives killed by US troops for no adequate reason. Often they do not know if they were shot by regular soldiers or by members of western security companies whose burly employees, usually ex-soldiers, are everywhere in Iraq. ...
An American patrol roared past us with the soldiers gesturing furiously with their guns for traffic to keep back on an overpass in central Baghdad. A black car with three young men in it did not stop in time and a soldier fired several shots from his machine gun into its engine.
The driver and his friends were not hit, but many Iraqis do not survive casual encounters with US soldiers. It is very easy to be accidentally killed in Iraq. US soldiers treat everybody as a potential suicide bomber. If they are right they have saved their lives and if they are wrong they face no penalty.
"We should end the immunity of US soldiers here," says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish politician who argues that the failure to prosecute American soldiers who have killed civilians is one of the reasons why the occupation became so unpopular so fast. He admits, however, that this is extremely unlikely to happen given the US attitude to any sanctions against its own forces.
Every Iraqi has stories of friends or relatives killed by US troops for no adequate reason. Often they do not know if they were shot by regular soldiers or by members of western security companies whose burly employees, usually ex-soldiers, are everywhere in Iraq. ...
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