[Iraq] Attack helicopters firing into crowds caught on tape

[Grojlach]

See the tv-report here. Note the situation in the streets right before the attacks, with the Al Arabiyya reporter simply trying to do his job. There might have been some riots going on (OMG they were throwing stones!), but I for one didn't see any uncontrollable situations in that poor guy's footage, with people walking and cars driving around as in an everyday routine... The reporter died from his wounds shortly thereafter.

And here's a sad update of the situation on the whole.

Dozens die in day of Iraq clashes

Fighting across Iraq between militants and US-led forces has left some 70 people dead, officials at the Iraqi health ministry have said.
Baghdad saw some of the heaviest clashes for weeks as mortars fell in the Green Zone government quarter, and US helicopters fired missiles.
More than 30 people died during hours of gun battles on Sunday.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said US and Iraqi forces would eventually end the insurgency.
"This is a difficult time as this insurgency still rages and as we work to bring it under control. But it will be brought under control," he told NBC television.
As well as in Baghdad, clashes erupted in the west, north and south areas.
In Ramadi, west of the capital, 10 people died in clashes between Iraqi fighters and US soldiers.
The BBC's Caroline Hawley, in Baghdad, says that more than two months into the handover of power, neither Iraqi nor US forces seem able to exert control in the capital.

Children killed

Rockets and mortar bombs began hitting the Green Zone early on Sunday morning.
The huge government compound, which also houses the US embassy, was bombarded by insurgents who oppose the presence in the country of US troops.
One blast hit the French embassy's car park, but caused no injuries. Another fell just short of the main international hotels.
Gun battles raged in Haifa Street, a stronghold of Saddam loyalists. Fighting broke out at around 0500 (0100 GMT) in the area on the western side of the Tigris River.
A US armoured vehicle caught fire and its four crew members were evacuated with minor injuries.
An American helicopter gunship opened fire with missiles and machine-guns at a crowd swarming around the vehicle who were cheering and throwing stones.
Two children and a journalist for an Arabic TV news channel, al-Arabiyya, were among those killed.

In other violence:
* An apparent suicide attack on Abu Ghraib jail, outside Baghdad, was foiled when guards shot at a vehicle which then exploded, killing the driver
* A car bomb in western Baghdad killed two police officers and a young boy
* Three Iraqi national guardsmen were killed around the town of Hilla, south of Baghdad. Three Polish soldiers died in an ambush in the same area

'Drive on'
Meanwhile, Mr Powell said that the US was committed to giving the country stability.
And he added that he was confident that the elections for next year could still be held on time - though he gave no further details on the plan to end the violence.
"This is not the time to get weak in the knees or faint about it, but to drive on and finish the work that we started," he told NBC television.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3648786.stm

[ 09-14-2004, 06:11 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[dplax]

That's just sad. Although the reason the american military will probably come up with is that they did not want the tank's technology to fall into the wrong hands (IMO), they could have checked whether there was anyone in the area before destroying the tank.

[Morgeruat]

A US armoured vehicle caught fire and its four crew members were evacuated with minor injuries. An American helicopter gunship opened fire with missiles and machine-guns at a crowd swarming around the vehicle who were cheering and throwing stones.

I assume you've seen or read Blackhawk Down, in it (in Somalia) a similar situation occured a downed military vehicle (in that case a Blackhawk Helicopter) was disabled, and the crew and soldiers within were slaughtered, dismembered and dragged through the streets as a "celebration". (with the exception on one pilot who was taken captive, and later released; CW3 (maybe CW4) Durant IIRC)


There is a procedure for destroying sensitive equipment to keep it from falling into foreign hands, but if the vehicle was on fire as described then time was likely not avaiable to follow procedure. I'd rather see a dead mob than let soldiers of any nationality get torn apart by a mob hiding behind women and children in an attempt to use political correctness as a weapon against US sensitivities to such things.

[Khazadman Risen]

Those vehicles are also full of weapons and ammunition. There's too much of the stuff over there as it is. No need for us to add to it.

[Grojlach]

Same incident, different perspective (from a Guardian columnist).
Note that there's a gory photograph in the original article (in case you prefer to read the source material).

'He's just sleeping, I kept telling myself'

On Sunday, 13 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured in Baghdad when US helicopters fired on a crowd of unarmed civilians. G2 columnist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who was injured in the attack, describes the scene of carnage - and reveals just how lucky he was to walk away

Tuesday September 14, 2004
The Guardian

It started with a phone call early on Sunday morning: "Big pile of smoke over Haifa Street." Still half asleep I put on my jeans, cursing those insurgents who do their stuff in the early morning. What if I just go back to bed, I thought - by the time I will be there it will be over. In the car park it struck me that I didn't have my flak jacket in the car, but figured it was most probably just an IED (improvised explosive device) under a Humvee and I would be back soon.

On the way to Haifa Street I was half praying that everything would be over or that the Americans would seal off the area. I haven't recovered from Najaf yet.

Haifa Street was built by Saddam in the early 80s, part of a scheme that was supposed to give Baghdad a modern look. A long, wide boulevard with huge Soviet high-rise buildings on both sides, it acts like a curtain, screening off the network of impoverished alleyways that are inhabited by Baghdad's poorest and toughest people, many of whom are from the heart of the Sunni triangle.

When I arrived there I saw hundreds of kids and young men heading towards the smoke. "Run fast, it's been burning for a long time!" someone shouted as I grabbed my cameras and started to run.

When I was 50m away I heard a couple of explosions and another cloud of dust rose across the street from where the first column of smoke was still climbing. People started running towards me in waves. A man wearing an orange overall was sweeping the street while others were running. A couple of helicopters in the sky overhead turned away. I jumped into a yard in front of a shop that was set slightly back from the street, 10 of us with our heads behind the yard wall. "It's a sound bomb," said a man who had his face close to mine.

A few seconds later, I heard people screaming and shouting - something must have happened - and I headed towards the sounds, still crouching behind a wall. Two newswire photographers were running in the opposite direction and we exchanged eye contact.

About 20m ahead of me, I could see the American Bradley armoured vehicle, a huge monster with fire rising from within. It stood alone, its doors open, burning. I stopped, took a couple of photos and crossed the street towards a bunch of people. Some were lying in the street, others stood around them. The helicopters were still buzzing, but further off now.

I felt uneasy and exposed in the middle of the street, but lots of civilians were around me. A dozen men formed a circle around five injured people, all of whom were screaming and wailing. One guy looked at one of the injured men and beat his head and chest: "Is that you, my brother? Is that you?" He didn't try to reach for him, he just stood there looking at the bloodied face of his brother.

A man sat alone covered with blood and looked around, amazed at the scene. His T-shirt was torn and blood ran from his back. Two men were dragging away an unconscious boy who had lost the lower half of one leg. A pool of blood and a creamy liquid formed beneath the stump on the pavement. His other leg was badly gashed.

I had been standing there taking pictures for two or three minutes when we heard the helicopters coming back. Everyone started running, and I didn't look back to see what was happening to the injured men. We were all rushing towards the same place: a fence, a block of buildings and a prefab concrete cube used as a cigarette stall.

I had just reached the corner of the cube when I heard two explosions, I felt hot air blast my face and something burning on my head. I crawled to the cube and hid behind it. Six of us were squeezed into a space less than two metres wide. Blood started dripping on my camera but all that I could think about was how to keep the lens clean. A man in his 40s next to me was crying. He wasn't injured, he was just crying. I was so scared I just wanted to squeeze myself against the wall. The helicopters wheeled overhead, and I realised that they were firing directly at us. I wanted to be invisible, I wanted to hide under the others.

As the helicopters moved a little further off, two of the men ran away to a nearby building. I stayed where I was with a young man, maybe in his early 20s, who was wearing a pair of leather boots and a tracksuit. He was sitting on the ground, his legs stretched in front of him but with his knee joint bent outwards unnaturally. Blood ran on to the dirt beneath him as he peered round the corner. I started taking pictures of him. He looked at me and turned his head back towards the street as if he was looking for something. His eyes were wide open and kept looking.

There in the street, the injured were all left alone: a young man with blood all over his face sat in the middle of the cloud of dust, then fell on to his face.

Behind the cube, the other two men knew each other.

"How are you?" asked the man closer to me. He was lying against the cube's wall and trying to pull out his cellphone.

"I am not good," said the other, a young man in a blue T-shirt, resting against a fence. He was holding his arm, a chunk of which was missing, exposing the bone.

"Bring a car and come here please, we are injured," his friend was saying into his cellphone.

The man with his knee twisted out, meanwhile, was making only a faint sound. I was so scared I didn't want to touch him. I kept telling myself he was OK, he wasn't screaming.

I decided to help the guy with the phone who was screaming. I ripped his T-shirt off and told him to squeeze it against the gash on his head. But I was scared; I wanted to do something, but I couldn't. I tried to remember the first-aid training I had had in the past, but all I was doing was taking pictures.

I turned back to the man with the twisted knee. His head was on the curb now, his eyes were open but he just kept making the faint sound. I started talking to him, saying, "Don't worry, you'll be OK, you'll be fine." From behind him I looked at the middle of the street, where five injured men were still lying. Three of them were piled almost on top of each other; a boy wearing a white dishdasha lay a few metres away.

One of the three men piled together raised his head and looked around the empty streets with a look of astonishment on his face. He then looked at the boy in front of him, turned to the back and looked at the horizon again. Then he slowly started moving his head to the ground, rested his head on his arms and stretched his hands towards something that he could see. It was the guy who had been beating his chest earlier, trying to help his brother. He wanted help but no one helped. He was just there dying in front of me. Time didn't exist. The streets were empty and silent and the men lay there dying together. He slid down to the ground, and after five minutes was flat on the street.

I moved, crouching, towards where they were. They were like sleeping men with their arms wrapped around each other in the middle of the empty street. I went to photograph the boy with the dishdasha. He's just sleeping, I kept telling myself. I didn't want to wake him. The boy with the amputated leg was there too, left there by the people who were pulling him earlier. The vehicle was still burning.

More kids ventured into the street, looking with curiosity at the dead and injured. Then someone shouted "Helicopters!" and we ran. I turned and saw two small helicopters, black and evil. Frightened, I ran back to my shelter where I heard two more big explosions. At the end of the street the man in the orange overall was still sweeping the street.

The man with the bent knee was unconscious now, his face flat on the curb. Some kids came and said, "He is dead." I screamed at them. "Don't say that! He is still alive! Don't scare him." I asked him if he was OK, but he didn't reply.

We left the kids behind the bent-knee guy, the cellphone guy and the blue V-neck T-shirt guy; they were all unconscious now. We left them to die there alone. I didn't even try to move any with me. I just ran selfishly away. I reached a building entrance when someone grabbed my arm and took me inside. "There's an injured man. Take pictures - show the world the American democracy," he said. A man was lying in the corridor in total darkness as someone bandaged him.

Some others told me there was another journalist in the building. They took me to a stairwell leading to the basement, where a Reuters cameraman, a cheerful chubby guy, was lying holding his camera next to his head. He wasn't screaming but he had a look of pain in his eyes.

I tried to remember his name to call his office, but I couldn't. He was a friend, we had worked together for months. I have seen him in every press conference, but I couldn't remember his name.

In time, an ambulance came. I ran to the street as others emerged from their hiding places, all trying to carry injured civilians to the ambulance.

"No, this one is dead," said the driver. "Get someone else."

The ambulance drove away and we all scattered, thinking to ourselves: the Americans won't fire at an ambulance but they will at us. This scene was repeated a couple of times: each time we heard an ambulance we would emerge into the streets, running for cover again as it left.

Yesterday, sitting in the office, another photographer who was looking at my pictures exclaimed: "So the Arabiya journalist was alive when you were taking pictures!"

"I didn't see the Arabiya journalist."

He pointed at the picture of the guy with V-neck T-shirt. It was him. He was dead. All the people I had shared my shelter with were dead.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0...303807,00.html

[ 09-14-2004, 05:23 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally posted by dplax: That's just sad. Although the reason the american military will probably come up with is that they did not want the tank's technology to fall into the wrong hands (IMO),

Its called SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), no it was not a tank, it was a Armored Fighting Vehicle, AKA Bradley. A BFV has a 25mm bushmaster, a 7.62 coax, and TOW II missiles, add along the ammo and such for whatever patrol it was conducting, none of which do you allow in the hands of the enemy. Weapons and sensitive items are either secured and removed, or destroyed when the crew destroys the vehicle. Technology from the BFV is the same universal as that of the Europeans.

they could have checked whether there was anyone in the area before destroying the tank.

BFV's don't catch fire just because, it was hit in an ambush, did they check to see if the crew and dismounts were clear before the ambush? The crew was evacuated by (not yet released) and they did not (not for public view) so the 'Thermite Grendaes' did not (Not for view). Once the AH arrived on scene, there was a mob climbing on, waving flags from the vehicle. (Who in their right mind would get on top of a burning vehicle). There was ample opportunity for the mob to disban and leave, but they chose not to. Sorry!

Why would you remain on a burning vehicle with AHs in the air.? Did they not learn from the last exact same outcome?

[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?

[Grojlach]

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.

[ 09-15-2004, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[dplax]

Originally posted by Felix The Assassin: Its called SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), no it was not a tank, it was a Armored Fighting Vehicle, AKA Bradley. A BFV has a 25mm bushmaster, a 7.62 coax, and TOW II missiles, add along the ammo and such for whatever patrol it was conducting, none of which do you allow in the hands of the enemy.

Do you rather kill a dozen civilians?

[ 09-15-2004, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

[Morgeruat]

[quote]Originally posted by Morgeruat:

I'd rather see a dead mob than let soldiers of any nationality get torn apart by a mob hiding behind women and children in an attempt to use political correctness as a weapon against our sensitivities to such things.

nuff said

{edit} it's also SOP to shoot to kill to protect secret (or higher) level secure information/equipment (all of which would be inside of the BFV (if the person taking them tries to run, rather than give themselves up when told to by whoever finds them, or if they're armed and try to resist violently)

[ 09-15-2004, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]