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U.S. Says It Accidentally
Killed 9 Iraqi Civilians
SOLOMON MOORE and QAIS MIZHER
NY
Times
Monday February 4, 2008
BAGHDAD — American forces said Sunday that they had accidentally
killed nine Iraqi civilians and wounded three in a strike aimed
at militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia south of Baghdad, acknowledging
what appeared to be one of the deadliest cases of mistaken identity
in recent weeks.
A military statement released late in the day said the accidental
killings happened Saturday in Iskandariya, about 25 miles south
of the capital, and that the wounded were taken to American military
hospitals.
The statement did not further identify the civilian victims,
but the Iraqi police said American aircraft, responding to an
attack on an American convoy, had erroneously bombed Iraqi civilian
guardsmen who have contracted with the American military to fight
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
(Article continues below)
Those guardsmen, predominantly Sunnis, are considered a major
reason the American military has successfully reduced insurgent
violence in Iraq. But in recent weeks scores of the Sunni guardsmen,
known variously as Concerned Local Citizens, Awakening Councils
and the Sons of Iraq, have been killed in clashes with Qaeda fighters
and Shiite militia groups.
Lt. Patrick Evans of the Navy, an American military spokesman,
said that after the deaths in Iskandariya, American military officials
met with a sheik representing the citizens of the local area and
that the mistake was under investigation.
“We offer our condolences to the families of those who
were killed in this incident, and we mourn the loss of innocent
life,” Lieutenant Evans said. He said he did not know whether
the Iraqi victims were citizen guardsmen or precisely how they
had been killed.
News of the mistaken attack coincided with other scattered violence
in Iraq and the final passage of a much debated law that will
make it more difficult for former members of the Baath Party of
Saddam Hussein to keep their government jobs.
Lt. Col. Ahmad Ibrahim, a senior official in Iraq’s police
commando force, was killed by a bomb placed under his car in the
Mansour area of west Baghdad, the police said, and two of Mr.
Ibrahim’s bodyguards were wounded in the blast.
Full
article here.
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