Posted on 05/23/2004 3:37:58 PM PDT by AntiGuv
RAMADI, Iraq - A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck.
The U.S. military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters.
"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."
But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.
The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car — decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.
An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video — which runs for several hours.
APTN also traveled to Mogr el-Deeb, 250 miles west of Ramadi, the day after the attack to film what the survivors said was the wedding site. A devastated building and remnants of the tent, pots and pans could be seen, along with bits of what appeared to be the remnants of ordnance, one of which bore the marking "ATU-35," similar to those on U.S. bombs.
A water tanker truck can be seen in both the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape obtained from a cousin of the groom.
The singing and dancing seems to go on forever at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and the bride Rutbah Sabah. The men later move to the porch when darkness falls, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding.
As expected, women are out of sight - but according to survivors, they danced to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular Baghdad wedding singer hired for the festivities. Al-Ali was buried in Baghdad on Thursday.
Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ. Another tape, filmed a day later in Ramadi and obtained by APTN, showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud — his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed.
As the musicians played, young men milled about, most dressed in traditional white robes. Young men swayed in tribal dances to the monotonous tones of traditional Arabic music. Two children — a boy and a girl — held hands, dancing and smiling. Women are rarely filmed at such occasions, and they appear only in distant glimpses.
Kimmitt said U.S. troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria.
The videotape showed no weapons, although they are common among rural Iraqis.
Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although a "handful of women" — perhaps four to six — were "caught up in the engagement."
"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he told reporters Friday.
However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.
Four days after the attack, the memories of the survivors remain painful — as are their injuries.
Haleema Shihab, 32, one of the three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her seven-month old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her five-year-old son, Hamza, started running. Her 15-year-old son, Ali, sprinted alongside her. They managed to run for several yards when she fell — her leg fractured.
"Hamza was yelling, 'mommy,'" Shihab, recalled. "Ali said he was hurt and that he was bleeding. That's the last time I heard him." Then another shell fell and injured Shihab's left arm.
"Hamza fell from my hand and was gone. Only Yousef stayed in my arms. Ali had been hit and was killed. I couldn't go back," she said from her hospital bed in Ramadi. Her arm was in a cast.
She and her stepdaughter, Iqbal — who had caught up with her — hid in a bomb crater. "We were bleeding from 3 a.m. until sunrise," Shihab said.
Soon American soldiers came. One of them kicked her to see if she was alive, she said.
"I pretended I was dead so he wouldn't kill me," said Shihab. She said the soldier was laughing. When Yousef cried, the soldier said: "No, stop," said Shihab.
Fourteen-year-old Moza, Shihab's stepdaughter, lies on another bed of the hospital room. She was hurt in the leg and cries. Her relatives haven't told her yet that her mother, Sumaya, is dead.
"I fear she's dead," Moza said of her mother. "I'm worried about her."
Moza was sleeping on one side of the porch next to her sisters Siham, Subha and Zohra while her mother slept on the other end. There were many others on the porch, her cousins, stepmothers and other female relatives.
When the first shell fell, Moza and her sisters, Subha, Fatima and Siham ran off together. Moza was holding Subha's hand.
"I don't know where Fatima and my mom were. Siham got hit. She died. I saw Zohra's head gone. I lost consciousness," said Moza, covering her mouth with the end of her headscarf.
Her sister Iqbal, lay in pain on the bed next to her. Her other sister, Subha, was on the upper floor of the hospital, in the same room with two-year-Khoolood. Her small body was bandaged and a tube inserted in her side drained her liver.
Her ankle was bandaged. A red ribbon was tied to her curly hair. Only she and her older brother, Faisal, survived from their immediate family. Her parents and four sisters and brothers were all killed.
In all, 27 members of Rikad Nayef's extended family died — most of them children and women, the family said.
not yet, no.
#80 !
#80
... "Too much news", yea, bad news. Would welcome some good news That's my problem, I"ll find it...
#80!
Aren't they one in the same network?
QuokkaPerth
registered 5/22/2004
Welcome to Free Republic. Please be advised that such over-the-top posts aren't appreciated by most people on this site and are used by propagandists to paint a twisted picture of what Free Republic is all about.
I know, but...
so much crap gets slung around by both poles of the ongoing war for public opinion that it is getting TIRESOME to try to weed through al the "he said/she said" to try to find the hard data with/from which to make up my own mind.
HA! Thanks, that makes perfect sense to me.
I think they're actually using footage from the last Reform Party convention. I swear one of them looked like pat buchanan.
Camel Chit !
Sheherezade was the story teller from the Arabian nights who made up stories to tell the king every night so she could escape execution. That's all I meant, it seemed a little spot on that someone who is repeating the bad guy party line would have the same name as such a historically signiicant elaboratrix.
"My view is that of the Framers of the Constitution."
You don't know jack about the framers. You're just another one of those nut jobs that would sentence this nation to more and more decades of fear. George Bush is the first president in many years to operate on the principle of smashing our enemies before they can destroy us. If you've got a problem with that then I say you're a coward.
Aha...Yes, I know about that Sheherezade. I see what you were saying. Thanks.
Hmmmmmmm
Since las tyear, this reporter has had her/his share of 'quagmire-styled' stories:
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/photos/6503383.htm
Jittery U.S. Soldiers Kill 6 Iraqis
SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The night air hung like a hot wet blanket over the north Baghdad suburb of Slaykh. At 9 p.m., an electrical transformer blew up, plunging the neighborhood into darkness.
American soldiers, apparently fearing a bomb attack, went on alert. Within 45 minutes, six Iraqis trying to get home before the 11 p.m. curfew were shot and killed by U.S. forces.
Anwaar Kawaz, 36, lost her husband and three of four children. "We kept shouting, 'We're a family! Don't shoot!' But no one listened. They kept shooting," she told The Associated Press. She's expecting another child this month.
When asked about Friday's shootings, Lt. Col. Guy Shields, coalition military spokesman, said, "Our checkpoints are usually marked and our soldiers are trained and disciplined. I will check on that. That is serious."
Confronted by daily guerrilla attacks that have claimed 56 American lives since May 1, U.S. troops are on edge. Iraqis complain that many innocent people have died at surprise U.S. checkpoints thrown up on dark streets shortly before the curfew. Drivers hurrying home say they don't see the soldiers or hear their orders to stop.
----
http://www.robincmiller.com/art-iraq/b189.htm
U.S. Troops Accused of Killing Iraqis
Thu, Apr 17, 2003
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer
MOSUL, Iraq - Anarchy and violence in Iraqi's third-largest city have drawn U.S. Marines into confrontations for two straight days, and hospital officials said 17 Iraqis died and at least 17 others were injured.
Hospitals said 14 people died Tuesday, while U.S. officers put the death toll around seven. Three more Iraqis were reported fatally shot Wednesday and 17 wounded.
"They are killing us and no one's talking about it," Zahra Yassin said at a hospital with her wounded son. "We want Saddam back. At least there was security."
...
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In Samara, Iraqi looters fill void after soldiers withdraw
By SCHEHERAZADE FARAMARZI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAMARA, Iraq (AP) - When the U.S. Army unexpectedly withdrew most of its troops from this central Iraq town full of Saddam Hussein loyalists, guerrillas firing machine guns, mortars and grenades overran abandoned U.S. bases, leaving a shaken Iraqi civil defense chief pleading for the Americans' return.
"We cannot handle this on our own," Capt. Ihsan Aziz told The Associated Press after the weekend pullout of U.S. troops.
The redeployment of American troops to a garrison about six miles north of Samara may be a harbinger of things to come in Iraq as the U.S.-led coalition moves to turn over security and more authority to Iraqis inside cities and towns, despite worries by some residents that they're ill-prepared to handle insurgents.
Muslims did worse things in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Gee, I used the magic words. OK, Ronly Bonly Osama come here. Srebrenica, Srebrenica, Srebrenica.
mark
I'm starting to believe that the only "truth" that can exist in the Middle East is that which is dictated by force of arms. And I'm starting to advocate that we simply hire some creative authors to define that truth, and brush all else aside.
Naked twister and a barking dog for Sheherazade.
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