Did Bin Laden make a mistake?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
how is it terrorism malik...
its a mistake at the minimum and gross negligence at max, but not terrorism.
[/QUOTE]
Is it me or is it always the Yankies involved in Friendly fire...why dont the say it openly that the yankies wish to be machine guns carrying cowboys from yee haa land.
Afghans fed up with America, Iraqi fed up with America, is the only thing you read in the news these days....r the goons blind?
U.S. Apology Doesn't Appease Angry Iraqis
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Angry mourners swarmed this central Iraqi city Saturday, firing into the air, attacking journalists and cursing the American occupation as they followed the flag-draped coffins of eight Iraqi police killed in a friendly fire incident involving U.S. troops.
The U.S. military apologized Saturday for the shooting that killed nine people — the eight Iraqis and a Jordanian guard — and badly damaged a hospital. U.S. troops only opened fire after they were attacked "by unknown forces," the military said.
But the explanation did not defuse the anger washing over Fallujah, a city of 200,000 in Iraq (news - web sites)'s most troubled region. The shooting was the worst case of friendly fire since major hostilities in Iraq were declared over May 1, and it served to intensify talk here of the heavy-handedness of American troops.
"We have had enough of the Americans killing us and then just saying 'Oh, sorry!'" said Salam Mohammed, 60, a Fallujah resident and a relative of some of the victims.
"We want the Americans to leave our country because they have brought us only death," said Taleb Hameed, a 30-year-old schoolteacher. "We are fed up with their apologies. We will continue our resistance."
On Saturday afternoon, the eight coffins were carried into a mosque for religious rites before they were given to family members for burial. Outside, gunshots erupted throughout Fallujah as mourners fired into the air. Some in the crowd chanted: "There is no God but Allah, and America is the enemy of Allah."
In an ominous message, Fawzi Namiq, the mosque's imam, said through loudspeakers: "Save your bullets for the chests of the enemy."
In the streets, angry residents roughed up reporters who came to witness the ceremony. A clergyman grabbed one armed man and prevented him from shooting at a departing Associated Press Television News car as it sped from the city. A CNN cameraman was beaten and an Associated Press photographer was hit in the face.
The U.S. military issued an apology for the shooting and said an investigation had begun. However, military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo said the Americans only fired after they were "attacked from a truck by unknown forces."
"Coalition forces," he said, "immediately returned fire and the subsequent engagement lasted approximately three hours. Regrettably during the incident extensive damage was done to the (Jordanian) hospital and several security personnel were killed, including eight Iraqis and one Jordanian national."
The military, he said, wished "to express our deepest regret for this incident to the families who have lost loved ones and express our sincerest condolences."
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) arrived in Kuwait early Sunday, ahead of a trip to Iraq, where he will become the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country since the war.
Powell has said the huge U.S. investment in Iraq in lives and money would be at risk if a transfer of authority from American control to Iraqi control took place too soon.
"You have to have a government that is not only there with the doors open, but has to be functioning. ... in a way that people will have confidence in it. The worst thing one can do is to set them up for failure," Powell said earlier.
The shootout began in the early-morning hours Friday as several Iraqi police vehicles approached a U.S. checkpoint near the Jordanian military hospital here.
Iraqi policemen who survived recounted from their hospital beds Saturday how they begged the American soldiers to stop shooting, screaming in Arabic and English that they were police. The Americans kept firing volley after volley, they said. The fusillade raged for a half hour as more men died and others groaned in pain from their wounds, they said.
At the Fallujah General Hospital, policeman Alaa Hashem, 22, recounted how the bodies of two colleagues fell on him, something he said may have saved his life.
Hashem was in a pickup truck with 10 other policemen when their headquarters radioed them. They were ordered to provide backup to policemen traveling in another pickup and a sedan. The two vehicles were pursuing a white BMW suspected of involvement in robberies on the road between Baghdad and the Jordanian border.
"The BMW got away before we could join the chase," said Hashem, who sustained injuries to his left thigh and back. "When the two cars turned around to head back to Fallujah, we joined them and we led the way back when we suddenly came under fire."
Hashem said he heard the Americans shout "stop!" but his car veered off the road. For the next 30 minutes, he said, the Americans kept firing at the total of 25 policemen in the three vehicles.
"We shouted and shouted that we are from the police, but they kept firing from all directions. It was like an ambush," he said.
Another injured policeman, Assem Mohammed, 23, gave an account that corroborated Hashem's story except he did not recall hearing the Americans shout "stop."
"We carry out our duty and that's what we get?" said Mohammed, who was shot in his right leg.
Relations between Fallujah's residents and U.S. forces in the area have been on a knife's edge since shortly after the city was captured in April. Friday's killings were certain to inflame smoldering hatred of the American occupation.
For the rest of Iraq, the incident was likely to stoke resentment of U.S. troops already seen by some as trigger-happy.
Fallujah is part of the so-called Sunni triangle — a vast swath of land astride the Tigris and the Euphrates west and north of Baghdad — where the mainly Sunni Muslim population gave deposed dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) his strongest base of support during his 23-year rule.
U.S. troops in the city came under almost daily attack for two months after a late April incident when soldiers opened fire on protesters, killing 18 and wounding 78. The Americans said they were fired at first.
The Americans pulled out of their permanent positions in the city in mid-July, leaving the local police in charge of security. The move dramatically reduced the number of attacks inside the city, but resentment of the Americans continued to simmer.
U.S. troops who had been directing reconstruction and other projects from the Fallujah mayor's office in the heart of the city were not there Saturday. Police at the mayor's office said the Americans' absence was understandable given Friday's events.
Nearby, a black banner was strung across the front of the one-story headquarters of the Fallujah Protection Force, a 100-man, U.S.-trained force to which the eight dead policemen belonged. The banner carried the names of the eight and declared: "The Fallujah Protection Force mourns the martyrdom of its members who have been killed at the hands of American forces."
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Madhanee: *
I think this is not even remotely compared to the casualties of Iran-Iraq war. and not forgetting the 10s of 1000s of Shias killed by Saddam.
[/QUOTE]
for how long r u going to find excuses for the amreicans to kill more and more innocent based on these past facts??
by the same logic, since americans killed so many innocent japanese by the atom bomb, people should keep on killing americans forever.
lamer!
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Madhanee: *
I think this is not even remotely compared to the casualties of Iran-Iraq war. and not forgetting the 10s of 1000s of Shias killed by Saddam.
[/QUOTE]
Just because their ex-govt regime was a brutal one, they fought a war with other nation, keep ignoring the "mistakes" by occupiers and ignore any deaths caused because life of an Iraqi is already cheap and Iraqis are very much used to it.