U.S. Snipers Firing on Ambulances in Fallujah

Infowarror
Im not in favor of this attack on Iraq. I think the Bush people are dumb as rocks. Afganistan was warented because they refused to turn over the Al Queda terroists. The afghans suported them with training camps while the Saudias supplied the money and the personal. Having said that Im not sure one can believe that marine snipers are the ones shooting at ambulances. The Iraqie religious and politicle leftovers from Hussens government have shown time after time they are willing to kill thier own people in order to forment revolution. I also believe that Al Quida terroists are also in Iraq causing trouble. The fault is Bushes government. He declared an end to a war that will be going on for years. He is trying his darndest to git the UN involved so he can blame them for the problems in iraq. If the US gits out of Iraq by June Bush will have just left a mess that will be worse than Iran. He hasent finished anything he started except lower taxes for the wealthy.

Isn't that illegal according to the Geneva Convention?

Lots of things are...



Doesn't mean it won't happen.

Unless there's some argument about the fact that Iraq isn't one of the "High Contracting Parties" and therefore isn't protected under the Convention.

Bingo Individual. Remind you of the people at camp X-ray at all?

Conventions only matter if both sides hold to them. At the moment neither side is.

It seems to me that I have read, or heard that terroists and combantants have used ambulances for rolling bombs in some parts of Iraq. If the marines are useing ambulances or targett practice Im sure it will become top news as it should. But are the Iraquie being truthful or trying to cause our soilders embarasement. Im sure they hate us. If I were in thier place I sure would.

Oh, like the time that they had a suicide bomber drive through a checkpoint a blow himself to smithereens. Then a week later, they crammed a van full of women and children and told them that if they didn't drive through the border they would all die.

Guess what happened then.

What happened was what always happens when people of no consience do things like this. Can you blame a soilder who tries to stop a van. or an ambulance and is forced to fire on it because it wont stop. I hate the fact that innocents are sacrificed by both sides. I dont know what the Iraquies call them but we call them colloteral damage. A politicle discription that takes away thier humanity.

There isn't a way to stop civilian casualties unless we cease fighting. Unfortunately, it isn't so easy to stop a war.

And people complained about a headline I wrote...



The news story doesn't say that ambulances are being shot at by U.S. snipers. Jeez...

Tarantulas, click on the link a read a bit would ya?



Jeez...

I was quoting the Reuters article. I don't know what the credibility of "Pacifica Radio" might be. Show me the same allegations reported by a major news organization and I'll take a look.

I had heard these claims at third-hand before coming into Fallujah, but was skeptical. It's very difficult to find the real story here. But this I saw for myself. An ambulance with two neat, precise bullet-holes in the windshield on the driver's side, pointing down at an angle that indicated they would have hit the driver's chest (the snipers were on rooftops, and are trained to aim for the chest). Another ambulance again with a single, neat bullet-hole in the windshield. There's no way this was due to panicked spraying of fire. These were deliberate shots to kill people in driving the ambulances.

The ambulances go around with red, blue, or green lights flashing and sirens blaring; in the pitch-dark of a blacked-out city there is no way they can be missed or mistaken for something else). An ambulance that some of our compatriots were going around in, trading on their whiteness to get the snipers to let them through to pick up the wounded, was also shot at while we were there.
Empire Notes

It is really, really bad. The Americans have been firing on ambulances and snipers are following them. The ambulances cannot get in.


Occupation Watch

Seems worth listening to both sides, no?????

Here is one from the BBC.

There's plenty more but I don't know which ones you consider "credible"

None, would be my guess.

BBC sounds fair to me:

(link from Adrian)


Picture emerges of Falluja siege


The US says it has helped provide access to humanitarian aid
A truce has brought a reduction in violence in the Iraqi city of Falluja after US troops fought insurgents there during a two-week siege.
There was little media access during the fighting, but eyewitness reports are now emerging.

Humanitarian workers speak of US soldiers firing at ambulances and civilians.

They say makeshift clinics were overwhelmed because of a bridge closure which cut off access to the main hospital.

I saw the ambulance disappear - not all of it, but the front of it, the side where the driver and paramedic were

Salam al-Obaidi
Iraqi doctor
US military officials have described the US operation as "humane" and say they "do everything possible to protect non-combatants". But they say insurgents' tactics are increasing the risks for civilians.

Coalition forces began the operation to "pacify" insurgent fighters in the restive, mainly-Sunni city on 5 April. It followed the gruesome murder and mutilation in late March of four security contractors working for the coalition in the city.

Ambulance accusations:
The head of mission of a European humanitarian agency with staff in Falluja told BBC News Online that, according to his staff, two of their ambulances had been shot at.

SIEGE OF FALLUJA

Mon 5: 1,200 US troops seal off Falluja
Tues 6: Heavy fighting, US forces say they control industrial area on east of city
Wed 7: US forces bomb mosque compound, locals say up to 40 are killed, but US says no bodies found
Fri 9: Women, children and old men allowed to leave city. Relief workers take some aid in. Reports speak of bodies left in the streets. Fighting resumes in evening
Sat 10: Governing Council and US officials call for a truce
Sun 11: Tentative ceasefire begins at 0600. Thousands flee city
Mon 12: Negotiations continue through mediators for ceasefire to be extended
Fri 16: First direct negotiations between US officials and local leaders
Mon 19: Deal struck to reduce tensions, US announces it is 'halting operations', shaky ceasefire established
"By who? The probability is by US snipers," he said.

Asked whether these were warning or attacking shots, he said: "One was shot two or three times - a sniper does not shoot an ambulance three times by mistake."

British aid worker Jo Wilding said an ambulance she was in, with flashing lights, siren blaring and "ambulance" written on it in English, was hit as it drove to collect a woman in premature labour.

Ms Wilding is sure the shots came from American troops.

"You can tell the shape of US marine from a mujahideen - even if you can only see a silhouette, the helmet and flak jacket are quite distinctive. Also, we were in a US-controlled part of town," she told BBC News Online.

Iraqi doctor Salam al-Obaidi, a member of the Doctors for Iraq humanitarian society, worked in Falluja for six days during the fighting.

Speaking to BBC News Online, he described seeing colleagues blown up in an ambulance - also clearly marked - travelling in front of him as his team tried to enter a US-controlled area.

"I saw the ambulance disappear - not all of it, but the front of it, the side where the driver and paramedic were," he said.


Some homes were destroyed in the fighting
He said he and two more colleagues were injured in a second explosion. He still does not know the fate of the two people in the first ambulance.

In a separate incident, Dr Obaidi said, a driver and paramedic in an ambulance were shot in a US-controlled area - one in the chest, the other in the eyes.

The injured civilians inside the ambulance bled to death during the next two days as warning shots were fired when the team tried - four times - to return to collect the ambulance, he said.

'Hidden weapons':
Three days into the siege, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, denied that troops were firing on ambulances.

If this hospital was working it would have saved a lot of lives



Ibrahim Younis, Medecins Sans Frontieres
"If we're shooting vehicles, it's because those vehicles have shot at us," he said.

US officials have said that on one occasion, an insurgent gunman was seen fleeing in an ambulance, and that weapons have been found in an aid convoy west of the city.

Coalition military spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmit said that there have been "a lot of people running around the city with blankets on their vehicles asserting that they are ambulances".

There was concern that these could have been loaded with explosives, he said.

Casualty figures:
The Iraqi death toll from the siege has been strongly contested. Local doctors have been widely quoted as saying at least 600 people died.

Mr Obaidi believes the total to be at least 750, not including those buried in gardens or other unofficial grave sites.


Major roads into Falluja were blocked throughout the siege
The Iraqi Health Minister, Khodair Abbas, said on Thursday that 271 people died and local doctors had been pressured to give inflated figures.

The proportion of these who were civilians is impossible to verify.

Reports from the city have consistently said that many civilians in US-controlled parts of the city were too afraid of US snipers to leave their homes during the siege.

Dr Obaidi and Ms Wilding described cases of women, children and old men who appeared to have been shot by US soldiers.

Dr Obaidi said he had seen the bodies of two men, one aged about 70, the other about 50, both shot in the forehead, in an area controlled by the US.

They had been lying at the front gate of their home for two days, he said, because the family did not dare step outside to retrieve the bodies.


Is he sure they were shot by US troops?

"You are joking?" he said. "There are people dead in an area just controlled by America snipers. Nobody, either civilian or resistance, could enter the area. Who could kill them? We know American bullets. We are not a stupid people."

Ms Wilding said an injured mother and two children had told her they were hit by US gunmen as they tried to leave their house.

She also said she met an old woman, shot in the abdomen, who was still clutching a white flag.


Tens of thousands fled the city during the fighting
"Her son said she had been shot by US soldiers," Ms Wilding said.

Dr Obaidi also said he had seen the body parts of a family in a bombed-out house: "There were seven women and five children. I saw the head of a child away from the body. Only one girl, aged four, had survived," he said.

US officials say their operations have been "extraordinarily precise".

Gen. Sanchez said civilian casualties were "absolutely regrettable", but were a fact on a "battlefield of this nature in an urban environment".

Gen. Kimmit, also blamed militants who "hunker down inside mosques and hospitals and schools, and use the women and children as shields" for the civilian suffering.


Hospital access:
The US has also faced criticism for blocking access to the city's main hospital by, according to most reports, occupying the river bridge which linked it to the rest of the city.

"If this hospital was working it would have saved a lot of lives," Medecins Sans Frontieres' Emergency Coordinator for Iraq Ibrahim Younis said.

Doctors set up makeshift clinics in the early days of the siege.

Ms Wilding said doctors were storing blood in a drinks fridge at a GP's surgery where they were treating the injured, and warming the bags under the tap in an unhygienic toilet.

Dr Obaidi said hundreds of patients were brought in, but his team had only 10 beds.

Part of the deal to end the fighting was a US commitment to allow "unfettered access" to the hospital and to "facilitate the passage of official ambulances" in the city.

The Coalition says troops "have consistently allowed food, medical and humanitarian supplies into the city" and have "assisted in the transportation and distribution of these supplies".

It also says marines have helped ambulances from Baghdad to get into Falluja, and that humanitarian convoys have been slowed by explosive devices found on the roads.

BBC: