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US Fire Kills Five Members of Iraqi Family
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One
of the three children killed by US forces in Iraq. (Reuters)
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BAQUBA,
Iraq, November 21, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – US
occupation forces opened fire Monday, November 21, at a civilian car
outside a military base northeast of Baghdad, killing five members of
an Iraqi family, three of them children, police and hospital sources
said.
"The
soldiers started shooting at us from all over. I slowed down and
pulled off the road, but they continued firing," Ahmed Kamel Al-Sawamara,
a 22-year-old student who was driving the car but escaped serious
injury told reporters.
"I
saw my family killed, one after the other, and then the car caught
fire. I dragged their bodies out."
Two
men and three children, aged one, two and three, were killed, and two
women and a child were wounded, Iraqi police told said, according to
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Three
other family members were wounded in the incident which took place
near Baquba at around 06:30 a.m. (03:30 GMT) as they were returning
from a funeral, the sources added.
Al-Sawamara
said that he suddenly saw US military vehicles just ahead of him.
A
US military spokesman confirmed the shooting, but put the toll at
three dead and two wounded.
US
troops had set up a makeshift roadblock to allow some military
vehicles to turn off a highway into a base when the civilian car
approached, Major Steven Warren said.
"The
Iraqi car wouldn't slow down and warning shots were fired," he
claimed.
The
car failed to stop and came under machine-gun fire, Warren added.
Medics traveling with the patrol immediately gave first aid after the
incident.
One
of the survivors told Reuters the family was traveling from Balad, a
town about 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, to the nearby city of
Baquba for a funeral when they were shot at by a US patrol as it
approached them on the road.
Children
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One
of the victims. (Reuters)
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"They
are all children. They are not terrorists," shouted one relative.
"Look at the children," he said as a morgue official carried
a small dead child into a refrigeration room, according to Reuters.
"We
felt bullets hitting the car from behind and from in front," said
another survivor with blood running from a wound to his head and
splattered on his shirt. "Heads were blown off. One child had his
hand shot off," he added.
According
to Reuters, the US military said it was looking into the incident but
did not confirm its involvement or provide any other details.
US
occupation forces claim doing everything in their power to ensure they
do not fire on civilians, but they have also admitted to
"accidentally" killing civilians at roadblocks.
To
avoid the possibility of being fired on, most Iraqis pull over to the
side of the road when US convoys approach, according to Reuters.
The
high numbers of civilians killed by US-led occupation forces in Iraq
has been a decisive factor in alienating Iraqis and giving huge
momentum to resistance groups, according to observers and analysts.
Last
month, a
former US Marine blamed incessant resistance attacks in
occupied Iraq on the American "genocide", accusing the US
army of training soldiers to be desensitized.
In
August 2003, US occupation troops shot dead pointblank an Iraqi father
and three of his four children, one of them only eight years old.
The
pregnant mother, Anwar, her 13-year-old daughter were the only
survivors and told British daily the Independent how US bullets tore
through the windscreen of their car and how they screamed for the
Americans to stop, but her plea fell on deaf ears.
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