Slaughter
In The Streets
By Dahr Jamail
28 May , 2004
The New Standard
Seventeen year-old
Amir is crying during much of the interview. We were coming home
from work, and were shot so many times, he says with deep anguish
and frustration, Walid told me to leave the car because he was
hurt and needed help.
The man he speaks
of, Walid Mohammed Abrahim, was a carpenter. Amir worked as his apprentice.
On May 12th, U.S.
troops occupying an Iraqi Police station in the Al-Adhamiya district
of Baghdad gunned down their small car as they traveled home after a
long day of work.
I still cant
believe Walid is killed, said Amir, crying inside the home of
Abrahims brother. He is like my brother, was so decent and
honest. So many people are killed because of their crazy, haphazard
shooting.
He is referring
to the U.S. troops who riddled the car with over 25 bullets. While they
were driving past an Iraqi Police station, a rebel fired upon the station
from a building on nearly the opposite end of the station from where
their car was. Mr. Abrahms car being the closest moving object,
the soldiers chose it as the most convenient suspected target.
Mr. Abrahims
brother, Khalid Mohammed Abrahim, sitting with us in his home today
is beside himself with anguish, All my brother was doing was coming
home from work. He says that his brother was a kind man, with
no involvement in the resistance, and did not even own a weapon.
Another man sitting
with us who is a resident of the neighborhood, 31 year-old Mohammed
Messen, spoke of the slaughter of an innocent man that he witnessed.
I saw coalition troops firing haphazardly and Walid was killed
by them, he stated sadly. I give this testimony to show
that coalition troops shot him.
Khalid then suddenly
added: Why has my brother been killed? They searched his car and
know he was innocent. All we seek is for God to give us patience to
deal with such conditions.
He then looked at
the ground and breathed, We are all suffering here.
Later on that afternoon,
I go to the home of an Iraqi Policeman who was at the station that night
and agreed to discuss the incident on condition of anonymity. He says
Mr. Abrahim was returning home when he passed the police station in
Al-Adhamiya at 2 a.m. Due to celebratory gunfire earlier in the night
following an Iraqi Soccer Team victory, U.S. soldiers occupied the Iraqi
Police station in the district.
The police report
of the incident states that his car was shot 29 times, with Mr. Abrahim
suffering two gunshots in the head, along with being shot five times
in the chest.
Another Iraqi Policeman
who was at the station when the incident occurred, also speaking on
condition of anonymity with us, says that when several men attempted
to pull Abrahim from the car, U.S. troops opened fire on them. This
is the usual policy of the Americans, he states as a matter of
fact, They always shoot first, because there is nobody to punish
them for their mistakes.
He says that Iraqi
Police have no control over their station when the U.S. forces choose
to occupy it. When the Americans take over our police station,
they bring us all together and tell us we are no longer in charge of
anything, he says, holding up his arms in exasperation.
The policeman says
that all of them were made to stay inside the station while U.S. soldiers
occupied the roof. This is why I can say definitely yes, it was
the Americans who shot Mr. Abrahim, and not Iraqi Police, because none
of us were even allowed on the roof, he says firmly.
He adds that he
personally has on his desk between 150-200 files of incidents where
U.S. occupation forces have killed innocent Iraqis, and that several
other Iraqi Policemen at his station have a similar number. He lets
out a deep breath and says, There are so many people the Americans
have shot.
Continuing his discussion
of the atrocity, he says, When I reached near to the car, I saw
people trying to pull him out of the car, but the Americans began shooting
at them so they ran away.
When he was finally
able to reach Abrahim, he found he had died of his wounds. He then attempted
to take the body to a nearby hospital, along with Amir and two other
witnesses at the scene. We tried to leave but several Humvees
appeared and shot at us, he says loudly, even though we
were in a police car.
The policeman goes
on to say that after the troops ceased firing, he told them they had
a body, but was told to go another way to the hospital.
Horrendous as this
story is, accounts of its kind are not infrequent today in occupied
Iraq. In fact, events like this have become commonplace. Driving anywhere
in Baghdad on any given day, the black funeral announcements of untimely
deaths are hanging from buildings, homes, and fences everywhere.
Not that these ever
make it into Western media.
As General Tommy
Franks who directed the invasion of Iraq said, We dont do
body counts.
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Dahr Jamail is Baghdad
correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering
the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his
crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to
donate to Dahr, visit The NewStandard.
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