Thursday, April 01, 2004
FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - In a scene reminiscent of Somalia, frenzied crowds dragged the burned, mutilated bodies of four men identified as U.S. security guards through the streets of a town west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday and strung two of them up from a bridge after insurgents ambushed their SUVs.
Five U.S. soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division also were killed when a bomb exploded under their M-113 armoured personnel carrier north of Fallujah, making it the bloodiest day for Americans in Iraq since Jan. 8.
The four security guards were killed in Fallujah, a Sunni Triangle city about 55 kilometres west of Baghdad and scene of some of the worst violence on both sides of the conflict since the beginning of the U.S. occupation a year ago.
Chanting: "Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans," residents cheered after the assault on two four-wheel-drive civilian vehicles left both SUVs in flames.
Residents in Fallujah said insurgents attacked the guards with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. After the attack, a jubilant crowd of civilians, none of whom appeared to be armed, gathered to celebrate, dragging the bodies through the street and hanging two of them from the bridge. Many of those in the crowd were excited young boys who shouted slogans in front of television cameras.
Television 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 the green, iron bridge spanning the Euphrates River.
"The people of Fallujah hung some of the bodies on the old bridge like slaughtered sheep," resident Abdul Aziz Mohammed said.
Some corpses were dismembered, he said.
U.S. officials did not identify the dead or the nature of their work because the next of kin had not yet been notified. However, early evidence indicated they worked for Blackwater Security Consulting, a company based in Moyock, N.C., the company said in a statement. The security firm hires former military personnel from the United States and other countries to provide security training and guard services. In Iraq, the company was hired by the Pentagon to provide security for convoys that delivered food in the Fallujah area, the company statement said.
One resident displayed what appeared to be military dog tags taken from one body. Residents also said there were weapons in the targeted cars. Television showed a U.S. passport near a body and a Department of Defence identification card belonging to another man.
Some of the slain guards were wearing flak jackets, resident Safa Mohammedi said.
The White House blamed terrorists and remnants of captive Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's regime for the "horrific attacks" on the U.S. guards.
"It is offensive, it is despicable the way these individuals have been treated," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
Referring to the planned June 30 transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis, McClellan said "the best way to honour those that lost their lives" is to continue with efforts to bring democracy to Iraq.
U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the guards "were trying to make a difference and to help others."
The abuse and mutilation of the corpses was similar to the scene more than a decade ago in Somalia, when a mob dragged corpses of U.S. soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu, eventually leading to the U.S. withdrawal from the African country. The images were broadcast worldwide and became the subject of the book and movie Black Hawk Down.
Wednesday's images of the four killed in Iraq filled television screens worldwide but were largely shunned by U.S. television that deemed them too graphic.
In London, Channel 4 News broadcast an electronically blurred body being dragged through the street. In Paris, LCI television station showed the footage of the bodies without blurring them. In Germany, ZDF News showed riot scenes but not any bodies.
A man held a printed sign with a skull and crossbones and the phrase "Fallujah is the cemetery for Americans" beneath the blackened corpses after they were pulled from the vehicles.
One body was tied to a car that had a poster in its window of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the Palestinian militant group Hamas who was assassinated by the Israeli military in Gaza City.
The roadside bomb that killed the five U.S. soldiers Wednesday was in Malahma, 20 kilometres northwest of Fallujah, where anti-U.S. insurgents are active.
Their deaths raised the number of U.S. troops killed in March to at least 48, making it the second-deadliest month for U.S. troops since President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat May 1. The deadliest month was November, when 82 U.S. troops were killed.
In all, at least 597 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began March 20, 2003. Of the total, 459 have died since May 1 when Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier off the California coast to declare the end of major combat.
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.
Northeast of Baghdad, in the city 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.
In Baghdad, at least 10,000 supporters of a radical Shiite Muslim cleric rallied Wednesday outside the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition in a protest against the closure of their weekly newspaper, accused by the top U.S. official in Iraq of inciting violence against coalition troops.
The chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, ordered Al-Hawza closed for two months Sunday because its articles "form a serious threat of violence" against coalition forces and Iraqi citizens working with them. Al-Hawza's managing editor dismissed the accusation and said political motives were behind Bremer's decision.
"Free al-Hawza newspaper from its captivity," declared one banner hoisted by protesters, many of whom carried portraits of their leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, or waved black and green flags.
Some protesters wore white shrouds, a symbol of martyrdom. Black-clad members of al-Mahdi Army, a militia set up by al-Sadr last year, marched in a military step.
"No, no to Bush. No, no to Bremer. Yes, yes to Muqtada," chanted the protesters, mostly young men in their teens and early 20s and 30s.
The coalition has defended the decision to close down al-Hawza, one of at least 200 publications that have sprung up since Saddam's ouster nearly a year ago. It said that while it supported a free press, it would not tolerate material that foments violence against U.S. or other coalition troops.
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You know, I used to support the war for Iraq. I used to think it was a good idea to free Iraqis from being ruled by an evil dictator, and helping spread democracy in the Middle East. I don't think that anymore. Watching these Iraqis dancing around the mutilated bodies of four American civilians, you have to wonder why we even bother trying to help these people. Whatever the motives for the war in Iraq, it's true to say that NOW the U.S. is trying to establish a peaceful democracy there. But why should America make this kind of an effort for people who, mainly, appear to hate them? When you drag the bodies of civilians around, burn and mutilate them...this isn't political protest, it's barbarism. When you see people dancing over freshly mutilated corpses, they don't seem like people anymore, they seem like fucking animals. This is indeed just like Somalia all over again.
The longer the war in Iraq goes on, the less justified it seems. No WMDs were ever found, thereby eliminating the main threat that was cited. You hear about things like how, when Iraqis were busy looting hospitals, American soldiers were safely guarding...the Ministry of Oil. Iraqis don't seem to really give two shits about democracy. And American soldiers are constantly getting killed while attempting to establish a peaceful, free government in a country where people habitually burn American flags. I say, fuck that. There is no point in trying to establish democracy in Iraq when many of the people you're attempting to help act like total barbarians in situations like this.
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