Say that's more than the manson family killed . Do you think any charges will be brought agains anybody?
Report: U.S. Mistakenly fires on Wedding Party in Iraq
by dubla 88 Replies latest social current
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El Kabong
It musta been one of those Gay Weddings.
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Yerusalyim
Can we wait for facts, or should we just run out and hang someone?
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frenchbabyface
Hi Heathen (can't just stay away) y'a know the feeling ...
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ThiChi
I am going to wait for more news on this........I bet something was up.....
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Valis
Maybe the gunship was flying overhead at night and they were still partying and shooting up into the air? If that were the case and the people in the gunship thought they were taking fire or there was some fighting going on and they retalliated? Just a thought.
Sincerely,
District Overbeer
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Cassiline
40 Iraqis celebrating wedding killed in US air strike: witnesses
BAGHDAD : Forty Iraqis celebrating a marriage in a village near the Iraqi-Syrian border were killed in a US air strike, witnesses told AFP.
A top US military spokesman would only say that US forces had carried out an operation in the open desert near the border.Advertisement
Witness, Mortada Hamid, 35, speaking to AFP by telephone from Makreddine village, in the Qaim region, said he was in his house when two US helicopters flew overhead at about 6:00 pm (1400 GMT).
He said the planes opened fire as wedding revellers were firing their guns in a traditional celebratory gesture.
"More than 40 people were killed. Bodies were everywhere, most of them women and children," said Hamid, a farmer whose house lies just 600 metres (yards) from where the strike took place.
The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya channel earlier said US planes targeted two houses where the wedding party was taking place.
The channel, which aired footage of bodies wrapped in blankets and loaded on trucks, said the dead included women and children and quoted the witnesses as saying the aircraft also destroyed other houses in the village.
The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel said the strike was carried out by US helicopters and targeted a huge tent pitched in the village for the celebrations.
Al-Jazeera's correspondent in Qaim, Hussam Hassan, also quoted witnesses as saying that 40 people were killed, including 18 women and children. The channel aired images of Iraqis digging graves, as did Al-Arabiya.
In Baghdad, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said US forces had targeted a building suspected of housing foreign fighters.
"Coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided," Kimmitt read from a statement sent to AFP.
"Coalition forces on the ground recovered numerous weapons, two million Iraqi and Syrian dinar, foreign passports, and a SATCOM radio," he added.
He said the attack took place at 3:00 am (1100 GMT Tuesday) 85 kilometres (55 miles) southwest of Husaybah, and 25 kilometres from the Syrian border.
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ThiChi
Ahhhh, Now the rest of the Story.........
U.S. Disputes Strike Report on Iraqi Wedding Party
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq ? U.S. military officials disputed suggestions that an American helicopter struck a wedding party in western Iraq on Wednesday and said coalition forces staged an attack against suspected foreign fighters.
Arab television and The Associated Press aired video showing the bodies of small children in a truck full of bodies and people digging graves as they quoted witnesses and Iraqi officials who discussed the attack.
But senior military officials in Washington said U.S. and coalition forces conducted a strike on "anti-coalition vehicles" along the Iraqi-Syrian border.
According to the military, at 3 a.m. local time Wednesday coalition forces conducted an operation against a suspected foreign fighter safe house in the open desert. The house was 25 kilometers from the Syrian border, 85 kilometers southwest of Husaybah, military officials said.
Coalition forces came under hostile fire and called for support from the air. After the strike, coalition forces recovered numerous weapons, foreign passports, a SATCOM radio and two million Iraqi and Syrian dinars, military officials said.
The attack killed about 40 people, officials said.
Iraqi officials and others described a very different scenario.
Lt. Col Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of the city of Ramadi (search), said between 42 and 45 people died in the attack, which took place about 2:45 a.m. in a remote desert area near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said those killed included 15 children and 10 women.
Dr. Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, put the death toll at 45.
The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television reported that more than 20 people were killed and 10 injured in the attack.
The videotape, obtained and aired by Associated Press Television News, showed about a dozen bodies, one without a head. But it appeared that bodies were piled on top of each other and a clear count was not possible.
Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said partygoers had fired into the air in a traditional wedding celebration. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.
The video footage showed mourners with shovels digging graves. A group of men crouched and wept around one coffin.
Al-Ani said people at the wedding fired weapons in the air, and that American troops came to investigate and left. However, al-Ani said, helicopters attacked the area at about 3 a.m. Two houses were destroyed, he said.
"This was a wedding and the (U.S.) planes came and attacked the people at a house. Is this the democracy and freedom that (President) Bush has brought us?" said a man on the videotape, Dahham Harraj. "There was no reason."
Another man shown on the tape, who refused to give his name, said the victims were at a wedding party "and the U.S. military planes came... and started killing everyone in the house."
In July 2002, Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province ( search ). An investigative report released by the U.S. Central Command ( search ) said the airstrike was justified because American planes had come under fire.
Fox News' Bret Baier and Ian McCaleb and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Simon
AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What's the use.
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Cassiline
((( Simon)))
I saw your post and agree with much of it. I am sorry, we can be a frustrating bunch eh?
Cassi