Iraqis Drag Four Corpses Through Streets

AP ^ | March 31, 2004 | SAMEER N. YACOUB

[Charles Henrickson]

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Jubilant residents dragged the charred corpses of four foreigners — one a woman, at least one an American — through the streets Wednesday and hanged them from the bridge spanning the Euphrates River. Five American soldiers died in a roadside bombing nearby.

The four foreigners were killed in a rebel ambush of their SUVs in Fallujah, a Sunni Triangle city about 35 miles west of Baghdad and scene of some of the worst violence on both sides of the conflict since the beginning of the American occupation a year ago.

It was reminiscent of the 1993 scene in Somalia, when a mob dragged the corpse of a U.S. soldier through the streets of Mogadishu, eventually leading to the American withdrawal from the African nation.

In one of the bloodiest days for the U.S. military this year, five 1st Infantry Division soldiers died when their military vehicle ran over a bomb in a separate incident 12 miles to the northwest, among the reed-lined roads running through some of Iraq's richest farmland.

Residents said the bomb attack occurred in Malahma, 12 miles northwest of Fallujah, where anti-U.S. insurgents are active. U.S. Marines operate in the area, but it was unclear whether the slain troops were Marines.

Chanting "Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans," residents cheered after the grisly assault on two four-wheel-drive civilian vehicles, which left both in flames. Others chanted, "We sacrifice our blood and souls for Islam."

Associated Press Television News pictures showed one man beating a charred corpse with a metal pole. Others tied a yellow rope to a body, hooked it to a car and dragged it down the main street of town. Two blackened and mangled corpses were hung from a green iron bridge across the Euphrates.

"The people of Fallujah hanged some of the bodies on the old bridge like slaughtered sheep," resident Abdul Aziz Mohammed said. Some of the corpses were dismembered, he said.

Beneath the bodies, a man held a printed sign with a skull and crossbones and the phrase "Fallujah is the cemetery for Americans."

APTN showed the charred remains of three slain men. Some were wearing flak jackets, said resident Safa Mohammedi.

One resident displayed what appeared to be dog tags taken from one body. Residents also said there were weapons in the targeted cars. APTN showed one American passport near a body and a U.S. Department of Defense identification card belonging to another man.

U.S. military officials in Washington said the situation was still confused but they did not think the victims were American soldiers and believed the SUVs were not American military vehicles.

Witnesses said the two vehicles were attacked with small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades.

Hours after the attack, the city was quiet. No U.S. troops or Iraqi police were seen in the area.

Fallujah is in the so-called Sunni Triangle, where support for Saddam Hussein was strong and rebels often carry out attacks against American forces.

In nearby Ramadi, insurgents threw a grenade at a government building and Iraqi security forces returned fire Wednesday, witnesses said. It was not clear if there were casualties.

Also in Ramadi, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. convoy, witnesses said. U.S. officials in Baghdad could not confirm the attack.

On Tuesday in Ramadi, one U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a roadside bombing, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.

Northeast of Baghdad, in the city of Baqouba on Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew up explosives in his car when he was near a convoy of government vehicles, wounding 14 Iraqis and killing himself, officials said.

The attacked convoy is normally used to transport the Diala provincial governor, Abdullah al-Joubori, but he was elsewhere at the time, said police Col. Ali Hossein.

On Tuesday, a suicide bombing outside the house of a police chief in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, killed the attacker and wounded seven others.

A bomb exploded late Tuesday in a movie theater that had closed for the night. Two bystanders were wounded by flying glass, said its owner, Ghani Mohammed.

The latest violence came two days after Carina Perelli, the head of a U.N. electoral team, said better security is vital if Iraq wants to hold elections by a Jan. 31 deadline. The polls are scheduled to follow a June 30 transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government.

Top U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer said Tuesday he had appointed 21 anti-corruption inspectors general to government departments to try to prevent fraud. More will be named in coming days, he said.

The inspectors will work with two other newly formed, independent agencies. Together, they will "form an integrated approach intended to combat corruption at every level of government across the country," Bremer said.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

After you.

[T'wit]

What sort of aid do you recommend for blackened corpses in the hands of a violent mob?

[fatima]

After Karen.

[P-Marlowe]

We need to identify and round up all the morons in these pictures and slaughter them.

Wrong. That would be a police action. We should not treat this as a law enforcement action. It is war. We need to march a full division of soldiers into Fallujah and bring these slimeballs out into the streets and gun them all down.

Whenever we see these slimeballs dancing in the street, we need to send in a tomahawk or a MOAB and level the whole street. We need to think strategically rather than tactically.

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

#1 - find these scumbags.

#2 - torture them for a few weeks.

#3 - kill them in a way that makes the passion look like candyland.

#4 - Cut them into pieces.

#5 - feed the pieces to pigs.

Let's stop wanking it and let's shut these bastards down. When the oil runs out, Mecca burns.

[dominic housatonic62]

Well, we have some conventional ordinance now that's more powerful than atom bombs, and I'd be more than satisfied with those



Not true.

MOAB, which is our most powerful conventional bomb, uses around 18,000 pounds of trinotol which equals around 10 tons TNT equivalent. 1/100 of a kiloton. The first atomic bombs were of the 20 kiloton variety. Thats 20,000 tons of TNT, or enough to fill a good sized cargo ship. The MOAB just can't compete with that. A MOAB won't flatten a whole city. You can bet the farm that 1940s era A-bomb will, but of course we have much better stuff than that now. A B-61 bomb from an F-16 would be a good choice for Falluja. Instead of making trinitite, we can make some fallujatite.
Just thought you should know. Moab is just a pimple on an A-bomb's ass and nukes are the only thing good enough for the vermin in falluja.
I say show em the bomb and let allah sort em out

[My Dog Likes Me]

The bombing doesn't begin at noon, unfortunately, but more likely, the Coalition-sponsored town hall meeting in Fallujah begins after noon prayers. (sarcasm)

I just read that Marine forces on the eastern edge of town were ordered to pull back when this mutilation crap was going down (AP).

We should pull out of this cesspool if that's the case.
I don't care about building a free Iraq. There will never be a democratic country in the Islamic world.

Mark my words, a "Lieutenant Calley" episode involving our forces and these savages is on the horizon. Won't be pretty.

[Mel Gibson]

Unfortunately, you are right. There will never be a democratic country in the Islamic world. You can't impose democracy on a country.

We need a Lieutenant Calley in Fallujah and then level the politicians who wants to level Calley.

[Joe Hadenuf]

What sort of aid do you recommend for blackened corpses in the hands of a violent mob?

Lets see, you have a vehicle full of people being shot up by a mob of people, then set on fire, after the fire burns itself out, the mob proceeds to brutally rip the dead bodies apart, drag them through the streets, hanging their remains from bridges, and you ask what sort of aid would I recommend?

How about some aid from all of these so-called Iraiqi friends of ours?

Where where they Twit?

[SpyGuy]

we both know that destroying an entire city & it's inhabitants is not possible. ... By using the sonic weapon you are: 1. using non-lethal force

Oh give me an F'ing break! We've destroyed whole cities and its inhabitants in the past. I say it's high time we start doing it again and show these bastards we mean business.

Screw non-lethal force. When is the US going to pull it's politically correct head out of it's pansy ass and start dropping nukes on these cesspool countries and their infestations of humanoid maggots?

[Brad C.]

Sorry to say I am not familiar with the term "Arclights", but at this point I am willing to provide anything to speed the process.

[JDoutrider]

I personally want to bring these critters down....big time...

I have done so in a war not long ago...

May God forvive me...

I Personally I would encircle the town, pull a "Ghengis Khan" and be done with it...These ghouls will NEVER BE "Civilized"!

God Bless America!

[Dave Elias]

"I am thinking the best response would be to withdraw our troops from the city, and establishing a perimeter around it. Our troops should allow nothing to enter the perimeter, and nothing to exit. The perimeter should be large enough where anything that attempts to breach it be destroyed without prejudice or question. Simply explain to these barbarians that if they come within 1/2 mile of the perimeter, they will die."

What a ridiculous idea!

We haven't even been able to establish a secure perimeter around our own bases or Baghdad airport, how pray tell are we to form one around an hostile city of half a million people?

[Dave Elias]

"I agree in that I think a nuclear or other extremely violent American response will not be helpful. However, there are other methods. At least a significant portion of the Sunni triangle wants us out. We should leave that area, but not the country. However, that does not mean we let the babarians take over...we just don't pay the price in blood ourselves. I suggest that we bring in Iraqi forces to institute control in the triangle. By Iraqi, I mean Kurds, preferably the remains of the Barzani clan. Or at least Shia forces interested in forcing the Sunnis to toe the line. Vary how tight or loose a leash we keep on their vengeance based on the actions of the Sunnis. Don't give them the chance to fight us...make them fight their countrymen. "

Hmmmm, start a civil war, what a great plan.

[ThermoNuclearWarrior]

"I just read that Marine forces on the eastern edge of town were ordered to pull back when this mutilation crap was going down (AP)."

Why in the hell were they ordered back!? Why didn't they move into the city and capture or kill these guys and stop this from happening? I don't understand why our troops weren't sent in to get these corpses as soon as we knew about the attack so we could have prevented this. The stories I keep reading say no Iraqi police or U.S. troops have been in the area since the attack. I assume we have the bodies in our possession now, right? Who got them and when did they get them?


I was expecting more news of Marines carrying out tougher measures but everything seems quite there. It's disappointing because there should be something big and dramatic coming from us in response to this. Does anyone have any updated stories on what our Marines are doing over there today?

[Dave Elias]

"look at what you posted - and then apply that to the Germans and the Japanese after world war II. did it ever appear that they could be "civilized"? the japanese treatment of US prisoners, and those conducted in china, were horrible."

Quite right, even closer to home there were whole communities not so long ago who believed it acceptable to hang people on account of them being black. Moreover the made a social event of the whole thing.

[XHogPilot]

Did people in these countries other than Iraq respond to their liberation the way the Iraqis are?

Please do not forget, signing of armistice agreements are not synonymous with peace. For example, Hostilities continued after "cease fire" agreements with both Germany and Japan. The US did not sign a peace treaty with Japan until Sep 8, 1951. In Germany, guerrilla NAZI activity continued for years. No formal post WWII peace treaty was ever signed with Germany, arguably, this occurred defacto with the establishment of NATO.
There are plenty of South Koreans who are none to happy with America's continued presence in their country.

"Liberated" enemies do not lose their fight overnight.

[My Dog Likes Me]

I read the "Marines ordered to pull back" story on the Associated Press wire off of Drudge.

What angers me is that the mutilations seemed to take a while (hours?). One US aircraft scattered the crowd, then the mob was right back at it.

[My Dog Likes Me]

Our friends, the Saudis, are Sunnis.

That's why we'll not do anything militarily spectacular in response to this outrage in the crazed Sunni Triangle.
If we do, I'll be amazed.

Word up- if the White House spokesman doesn't say something like, "They were civilian contractors who understood the risks in rebuilding a new and free Iraq..." within 48 hrs, then I'll eat my shoes.

[ThermoNuclearWarrior]

They aren't doing it to get us to strike back wildly. They are too stupid to actually think about the consequences. They found a dead body and couldn't resist mutilating it and playing with it. They shouldn't just be imprisoned either. They should be killed. Every single one of them that had any participation in this at all. These 14 year olds shouldn't be treated any different than 50 year olds. Everyone seen on that video as much as smiling in support, should be killed. Bush is going to get a lot of negative feed back if there isn't a major strike in response to this. People are too passionate and angry about this to forget it. If we aren't satisfied we are going to speak out. If our response doesn't happen soon and isn't something major then it's going to get a lot of people upset. We need to at least announce we are looking to capture or kill the people on that video. Although they will only get a few of the main guys who did this, while ignoring the kids and people who watched with big smiles on their face. We should get everyone in that video no matter what. We should also hang these people in public but that's not going to happen. The Marines will probably be ordered to go shake hands with children instead of leveling that disgusting city.

www.MichaelSavage.com