Fallujah Refugees
Tell Of
Life And Death
By Dahr Jamail
04 December, 2004
The
NewStandard
Baghdad ,
Dec 3 - Men now seeking refuge in the Baghdad area are telling horrific
stories of indiscriminate killings by US forces during the peak of fighting
last month in the largely annihilated city of Fallujah.
In an interview
with The NewStandard, Burhan Fasaa, an Iraqi journalist who works
for the popular Lebanese satellite TV station, LBC, said he witnessed
US crimes up close. Burhan Fasaa, who was in Fallujah for nine
days during the most intense combat, said Americans grew easily frustrated
with Iraqis who could not speak English.
"Americans
did not have interpreters with them," Fasaa said, "so
they entered houses and killed people because they didnt speak
English. They entered the house where I was with 26 people, and [they]
shot people because [the people] didnt obey [the soldiers]
orders, even just because the people couldnt understand a word
of English."
A man named Khalil,
who asked The NewStandard not to use his last name for fear of reprisals,
said he had witnessed the shooting of civilians who were waving white
flags while they tried to escape the city.
Fasaa further speculated, "Soldiers thought the people were
rejecting their orders, so they shot them. But the people just couldnt
understand them."
Fasaa says
American troops detained him. They interrogated him specifically about
working for the Arab media, he said, and held him for three days. Fasaa
and other prisoners slept on the ground with no blankets. He said prisoners
were made to go to the bathroom in handcuffs, using one toilet in the
middle of the camp.
"During the
nine days I was in Fallujah, all of the wounded women, kids and old
people, none of them were evacuated," Fasaa said. "They
either suffered to death, or somehow survived."
Many refugees tell
stories of having witnessed US troops killing already injured people,
including former fighters and noncombatants alike.
"I watched
them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks," said Kassem
Mohammed Ahmed, a resident of Fallujah. "This happened so many
times."
Other refugees recount
similar stories. "I saw so many civilians killed there, and I
saw several tanks
roll over the wounded in the streets," said Aziz Abdulla, 27 years
old, who fled the fighting last month. Another resident, Abu Aziz, said
he also witnessed American armored vehicles crushing people he believes
were alive.
Abdul Razaq Ismail,
another resident who fled Fallujah, said: "I saw dead bodies on
the ground and nobody could bury them because of the American snipers.
The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near
Fallujah."
A man called Abu
Hammad said he witnessed US troops throwing Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates
River. Others nodded in agreement. Abu Hammed and others also said they
saw Americans shooting unarmed Iraqis who waved white flags.
Believing that American
and Iraqi forces were bent on killing anyone who stayed in Fallujah,
Hammad said he watched people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to
escape the siege. "Even then the Americans shot them with rifles
from the shore," he said. "Even if some of them were holding
a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not
fighters, they were all shot."
Associated Press
photographer Bilal Hussein reported witnessing similar events. After
running out of basic necessities and deciding to flee the city at the
height of the US-led assault, Hussein ran to the Euphrates.
"I decided
to swim," Hussein told colleagues at the AP, who wrote up the photographers
harrowing story, "but I changed my mind after seeing US helicopters
firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."
Hussein said he saw soldiers kill a family of five as they tried to
traverse the Euphrates, before he buried a man by the riverbank with
his bare hands.
"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still
see some US snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim," Hussein
recounted. "I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for
about five hours through orchards."
A man named Khalil,
who asked The NewStandard not to use his last name for fear of reprisals,
said he had witnessed the shooting of civilians who were waving white
flags while they tried to escape the city. "They shot women and
old men in the streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone who
tried to get their bodies."
"There are
bodies the Americans threw in the river," Khalil continued, noting
that he personally witnessed US troops using the Euphrates to dispose
of Iraqi dead. "And anyone who stayed thought they would be killed
by the Americans, so they tried to swim across the river. Even people
who couldnt swim tried to cross the river. They drowned rather
than staying to be killed by the Americans," said Khalil.
US military commanders
reported at least two incidents during which they say Iraqi resistance
fighters used white flags to lure Marines into dangerous situations,
including a well-orchestrated ambush.
Proponents of relaxed
rules of engagement for US troops engaged in "counter-insurgency"
warfare have cited such incidents from last months experience
in Fallujah as arguments for more permissive combat regulations. Some
have said US forces should establish what used to be called "free-fire
zones," wherein any human being encountered is assumed to be hostile,
and thus a legitimate target, relieving American infantrymen of their
obligation to distinguish and protect civilians. But if the stories
Fallujan witnesses have shared with TNS are accurate, it appears the
policy might have preceded the argument in this case.
US and Iraqi officials
have called the "pacification" of Fallujah a success and said
that the action was necessary to stabilize Iraq in preparation for the
countrys planned "transition to democracy." The military
continues to deny US-led forces killed significant numbers of civilians
during Novembers nearly constant fighting and bombardment.
© 2004 The
NewStandard.
www.newstandardnews.net
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