**WikiLeaks has posted a video on its website which it claims shows the killing of civilians by the US military in Baghdad in 2007.**The website’s organisers say they were given the footage which they say comes from cameras on US Apache helicopters.
They say they decrypted it, but would not reveal who gave it to them.
The WikiLeaks site campaigns for freedom of information and posts leaked documents online. There has been no Pentagon response to the video so far.
High-quality video
The video is of high quality and appears to be authentic, the BBC’s Adam Brookes in Washington says. It is accompanied by a recording of the pilots’ radio transmissions and those of US troops on the ground.
The video shows a group of around eight people on a street in Baghdad, whom the helicopter pilots deem to be insurgents.
It then shows the individuals on the street being shot dead with the Apache’s cannon.
Then, a van drives onto the scene, and its occupants appear to start picking up the wounded.
It, too, is fired upon. Altogether, around 12 people die. Two children appear to be injured.
‘Hostile force’
Two journalists working for Reuters were among those killed in the incident in July 2007.
WikiLeaks has published a statement from Reuters news editor-in-chief David Schlesinger saying that the video was “graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result.”
At the time, the US military said the helicopters were engaged in combat operations against a hostile force.
The Pentagon has not yet responded to the release of the video on Monday.
WikiLeaks said the video demonstrated that civilians had died in the incident, and that the US military’s rules of engagement were flawed.
The website’s organisers complained recently of coming under surveillance by the US government, and of harassment by other governments, ostensibly for their role in posting leaked documents on sensitive subjects.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.