[Iraq] Attack helicopters firing into crowds caught on tape

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally posted by Grojlach: quote: Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Whether or not you were originally part of an ambush, if one occurs near you and you run TOWARD it, you have chosen to take part in it. You have chosen a side, even if it's as a third party, and you should well be expected to be treated as an enemy force. Isn't this one of those Darwin Awards things?

Did you see the footage, even if it was only a few seconds long? It wasn't just "ambushers" that got killed, but there was regular traffic going on in the streets just the same between the tank and the reporter at the moment of the attack. I still have a feeling that they could have solved the situation in a more subtle manner, or at least they could have tried to divert traffic before their attempted destruction of the tank (as to minimise the number of innocent civilians, regardless of the moral question whether those still sitting on the tank have chosen to make themselves a target or not). As it is right now, it seems the attack really *did* came out of the blue, even considering the circumstances. [/QUOTE]Your link to that video tells a lot to the trained eye. First lets talk about the pops, and cracks, and the increased fire. Thats called secondary explosions, probably 25mm, belts of 7.62mm, or grenades cooking off.
Now, as the media man walks into view, and the narrator, shrills nobody expected what happened next. Show me where the AH fired, show me what it fired, don't show a burning BFV that is already experiencing secondary explosions. I say it's "look at what the Americans did", when from what I saw, it was a secondary explosion, probably from a TOW missile that destroyed the BFV and the crowd. The AHs were overhead awaiting the CIVPOL and Military to evacuate, and make the area safe. Prior to firing.

Relook the begining of the clip, and it's clear as bottled water, the BFV is already experienceing secondary explosions.
Relook the part where they claim the AH fired. Why all of a sudden did the picture change? I say media work to claim something that never happened! The BFV was destroyed by a secondary explosion from within.

Relook the foreground, if the AH would have fired a 'Hellfire" those two trees would no longer be, and half that city block would be gone, not just the minor concentrated danage.

My final two cents. The major blast was contained with-in the BFV, that is what contained the brunt of the blow. If that would have been a 'Hellfire' there would be no video to examine from that camera!

[Felix The Assassin]

Here is another good read for you.

I really think you should pay special attention to where, and who claimed resposibility, then again what the people want the world to believe. I find it ludicrous that they held up pieces of artillery shells, and claim US warplanes fired at them.

From the Times.

New York Times September 15, 2004 Pg. 1 Bombing Kills 47 At Police Station In Iraqi Capital By Edward Wong BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 14 - An increasingly bold and organized insurgency seized the offensive again on Tuesday as a suicide car bomb packed with artillery shells exploded outside police headquarters here, ripping into a crowd of hundreds of young men seeking to join the Iraqi police force and killing at least 47 people and wounding 114 others, police and health officials said. The death toll was the heaviest in any single bomb attack since July, when 70 people were killed outside a police station in the restive city of Baquba, northeast of the capital. As on Sunday, when dozens of Iraqis died in coordinated attacks throughout the country, the insurgents struck Tuesday in several locations. Hours after the Baghdad bombing, guerrillas in Baquba ambushed a van transporting a group of policemen, killing 11 officers and one civilian in a hail of gunfire. In the afternoon, another car bomb exploded in downtown Baghdad near a convoy of sport utility vehicles carrying civilian contractors, but only the bomber was killed, witnesses and policemen said. Saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline in the northern town of Bayji, setting off a fire and forcing the closing of a nearby generating plant, causing widespread blackouts. Responsibility for the bombing on Tuesday morning and the attack on the policemen in Baquba was claimed in two statements posted on the Web by One God and Jihad, a group led by a Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Reuters reported. False claims have appeared recently on the Web, and the claims on Tuesday could not be independently verified. The escalating violence throughout the country poses a challenge to the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which has seemed powerless to control the hostilities. And despite insistence by Bush administration officials that general elections for a constitutional assembly will be held by the end of January, the disintegrating state of security here also raises serious doubts about whether such elections can take place or whether their results will be viewed as legitimate by any meaningful share of the population. The ceaseless bloodletting was brought into stark clarity at the scene of the first car bombing on Tuesday, around 10 a.m. in the Haifa Street area, where insurgents have repeatedly clashed with American soldiers. Bits of flesh hung from trees, concertina wire and buildings, while boys raced around scooping up chunks onto pieces of cardboard. Policemen, bystanders and journalists at the scene could not take a single step without walking through pools of blood or treading on pieces of flesh. At least a half dozen cars were incinerated. Bits of glass and metal, as well as dead birds, lay scattered across the street. People gathered a pile of 100 shoes and sandals belonging to the dead and wounded. "It happened all of a sudden," said Ayad Hussein, 24, who in the morning went to police headquarters hoping to get a job interview and by noon was lying bandaged and half-naked in a bed at nearby Karama Hospital. "I flew into the air and landed on the ground," he said. "I saw body parts all over the place." The health minister, Abdul Sahib al-Alwan, strode out of the hospital after visiting with doctors and said, "The terrorist groups are attempting to impede the rebuilding of Iraq." The bombing was the first attack in recent memory outside the headquarters of the Iraqi police, a white-walled compound on the western side of the Tigris River near a neighborhood populated by remnants of the former ruling Baath Party. Despite repeated attacks in the past year on large groups of men standing outside police and army recruitment offices, policemen told job seekers on Tuesday morning to wait outside the compound. One policeman at the scene said that was done because many of the people had shown up without an appointment. And so hundreds of men from across Iraq gathered on a corner where children usually play pool on outdoor tables and video games inside a shop. "They have a big compound; they can let us all in," said Muhammad Hassan, a potential recruit who was walking to police headquarters when the bomb exploded. "But they drove us away from the headquarters." Perhaps as disturbing as the attack itself, though, was the reaction of the crowd at the scene. Gripped by an anti-American fervor, dozens of men rushed at a Western cameraman and chanted, "Bush is a dog, Bush is a dog!" They held up bits of the artillery shells and said American warplanes had fired missiles at the police recruits. That assertion, though false, was echoed even by wounded police officers. "I saw American helicopters bomb one of the cars, and then they bombed another car," said Sgt. Kassim Mahmoud, 32, as he sat grimacing in pain in Karkh Hospital, his left leg wrapped in a bloody bandage. "But I don't think this will make us afraid." Two policemen standing next to him looked on silently in agreement as nearby nurses put white gauze on the back of a man lacerated by dozens of pieces of shrapnel. At the bomb scene, a woman in black robes knelt by a pool of blood and began wailing, almost collapsing to the ground. "Where are our sons?" she said. "What have the Americans done to us? What have our sons done to the Americans?" At Karama Hospital, another woman threw a shoe at a car carrying an American reporter and photographer as it left the area. "Kill the Americans," she said. "Slaughter them one by one!" In the northern city of Bayji, home to Iraq's largest oil refinery, saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline, setting off a cascade of events that resulted in the shutdown of a power generating plant and widespread blackouts, the country's electricity minister, Aiham al-Sammarai, told The Associated Press. The blast was not expected to have a significant effect on Iraqi oil exports, virtually all of which are shipped through the south. Fighting between American soldiers and insurgents left eight Iraqis dead in the western city of Ramadi, a Health Ministry spokesman said. Farther north, near the Syrian border, American soldiers partly lifted a siege of nearly two weeks of the insurgent haven of Tal Afar and allowed some families to trickle back in. The move came one day after the Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, warned Washington not to press its campaign in Tal Afar, which is populated mostly by ethnic Turks. Citing a Turkish television network, Reuters reported that insurgents had released a Turkish hostage named Aytullah Gezman, who was abducted in late July. American officers have said soldiers from the Stryker Brigade invaded Tal Afar because it functioned as a smuggling center for non-Iraqi insurgents. Residents of Tal Afar confirmed the presence of foreign fighters in telephone interviews on Tuesday with an Iraqi reporter for The New York Times, who was turned away by American soldiers at a checkpoint outside the town. One resident, Saleh al-Hamdani, said the insurgents were tall, dark-skinned masked men, while most of the Turkish residents of the town are shorter and have relatively light-colored skin. "One day, an insurgent stopped in front of my house," Mr. Hamdani said. "He was exhausted, so I offered him some water. I had a short conversation with him, and it was clear from his accent that he's not Iraqi." "I don't know where all those insurgents came from," he added. "I guess some of them were already inside the city, and others came from the mountains. It's not hard to get inside the city even when it's under siege, because of the valleys used for smuggling goods between Iraq and Syria. "When the clashes erupted, a lot of people fled the city, so the insurgents used their houses as shelters," he said. "American planes retaliated by firing rockets on them, which caused a lot of damage in residential areas. Unfortunately, some gangs took advantage of the situation and started looting houses and government facilities." Tal Afar was one of many cities that had become virtual no-go zones for American soldiers. The most prominent remaining one is Falluja, west of Baghdad, where hard-line clerics and jihadists have set up a Taliban-style Islamist government. Sooner or later, American officials say, they will have to deal with such places.

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Felix The Assassin: Your link to that video tells a lot to the trained eye. First lets talk about the pops, and cracks, and the increased fire. Thats called secondary explosions, probably 25mm, belts of 7.62mm, or grenades cooking off. Now, as the media man walks into view, and the narrator, shrills nobody expected what happened next. Show me where the AH fired, show me what it fired, don't show a burning BFV that is already experiencing secondary explosions. I say it's "look at what the Americans did", when from what I saw, it was a secondary explosion, probably from a TOW missile that destroyed the BFV and the crowd. The AHs were overhead awaiting the CIVPOL and Military to evacuate, and make the area safe. Prior to firing. Relook the begining of the clip, and it's clear as bottled water, the BFV is already experienceing secondary explosions. Relook the part where they claim the AH fired. Why all of a sudden did the picture change? I say media work to claim something that never happened! The BFV was destroyed by a secondary explosion from within. Relook the foreground, if the AH would have fired a 'Hellfire" those two trees would no longer be, and half that city block would be gone, not just the minor concentrated danage. My final two cents. The major blast was contained with-in the BFV, that is what contained the brunt of the blow. If that would have been a 'Hellfire' there would be no video to examine from that camera!

Interesting theory, and kudos to you if it turns out to be true. But as it is right now, it doesn't confirm with witness reports - unless you think the BBC and the Guardian were in on the sham.
Oh, and if what you say is true, wouldn't there have been at least an official US military source issuing statements regarding this? Did the military at least *deny* the accusations, as they've done before?

[ 09-16-2004, 01:42 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Seraph]

Who in their right mind would get on top of a burning vehicle

2nd Lt. Audie L. Murphy for one.

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally posted by Seraph: quote: Who in their right mind would get on top of a burning vehicle

2nd Lt. Audie L. Murphy for one. [/QUOTE]I'll take your bait, tanks.
And what did he do on top of that burning vehicle?
He manned the weapons and commenced to destroy the enemy. Hence, if a AFV is disabled the above mentioned SOP goes into affect.