August 13, 2005 12:20 PM
Iraqis say 15 dead after military shooting -- but U.S. denies
RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - An attack on a U.S. military patrol followed by U.S. gunfire left 15 Iraqis dead and 17 wounded in a town west of Baghdad, residents said on Saturday, but the U.S. military said it was not responsible.
Residents of Nasaf, a town just outside the city of Ramadi, said a roadside bomb exploded next to a U.S. armoured patrol as it passed near the Ibn al-Jawzi mosque shortly after prayers on Friday.
They said U.S. troops opened fire immediately after the explosion, shooting towards people emerging from the mosque.
Munem Aftan, the director of Ramadi General Hospital, said 15 people were killed, including eight children, and 17 wounded.
Pools of blood lay on the steps outside the mosque, and bullet holes marked its walls.
But the U.S. military said its troops had not been involved in any firing in the area.
"U.S. forces were not involved in any shooting incident in eastern Ramadi or anywhere near a mosque," Captain Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the Marines in Ramadi, said in an e-mail reply to written questions.
"U.S. forces were certainly not involved in any indiscriminate fire incident," he said.
He did not comment on whether a bomb attack had taken place on a U.S. patrol or whether there had been U.S. casualties.
The death toll was initially put by residents at two dead, but doctors said it had risen sharply overnight, with several of the severely wounded succumbing to their injuries.
Iraqi civilians frequently complain that U.S. troops open fire wildly after they are attacked. The U.S. military says it does everything possible to avoid civilian casualties and is careful to respond to attacks in a measured fashion.
Human rights groups have documented scores of cases in which civilians have been shot and killed after approaching U.S. military roadblocks too quickly, or not following instructions to keep away from U.S. military convoys as they pass.
Roadside bombs -- explosives, typically artillery shells, buried in the side of the road and detonated as U.S. vehicles pass -- are the biggest killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.
In the bloodiest such incident, also in western Iraq, 14 Marines were killed when an armoured vehicle was destroyed by a landmine earlier this month.
A U.S. general said on Friday that roadside bomb attacks on U.S. supply convoys in Iraq had doubled in the past year, although the number of casualties had declined because of increased use of armoured vehicles.
Reuters
Full Article at:
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6006226&cKey=1123928416000
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Posted bt Neil at WWW below:
Iraqis say 15 dead after military shooting -- but U.S. denies
RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - An attack on a U.S. military patrol followed by U.S. gunfire left 15 Iraqis dead and 17 wounded in a town west of Baghdad, residents said on Saturday, but the U.S. military said it was not responsible.
Residents of Nasaf, a town just outside the city of Ramadi, said a roadside bomb exploded next to a U.S. armoured patrol as it passed near the Ibn al-Jawzi mosque shortly after prayers on Friday.
They said U.S. troops opened fire immediately after the explosion, shooting towards people emerging from the mosque.
Munem Aftan, the director of Ramadi General Hospital, said 15 people were killed, including eight children, and 17 wounded.
Pools of blood lay on the steps outside the mosque, and bullet holes marked its walls.
But the U.S. military said its troops had not been involved in any firing in the area.
"U.S. forces were not involved in any shooting incident in eastern Ramadi or anywhere near a mosque," Captain Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the Marines in Ramadi, said in an e-mail reply to written questions.
"U.S. forces were certainly not involved in any indiscriminate fire incident," he said.
He did not comment on whether a bomb attack had taken place on a U.S. patrol or whether there had been U.S. casualties.
The death toll was initially put by residents at two dead, but doctors said it had risen sharply overnight, with several of the severely wounded succumbing to their injuries.
Iraqi civilians frequently complain that U.S. troops open fire wildly after they are attacked. The U.S. military says it does everything possible to avoid civilian casualties and is careful to respond to attacks in a measured fashion.
Human rights groups have documented scores of cases in which civilians have been shot and killed after approaching U.S. military roadblocks too quickly, or not following instructions to keep away from U.S. military convoys as they pass.
Roadside bombs -- explosives, typically artillery shells, buried in the side of the road and detonated as U.S. vehicles pass -- are the biggest killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.
In the bloodiest such incident, also in western Iraq, 14 Marines were killed when an armoured vehicle was destroyed by a landmine earlier this month.
A U.S. general said on Friday that roadside bomb attacks on U.S. supply convoys in Iraq had doubled in the past year, although the number of casualties had declined because of increased use of armoured vehicles.
Reuters
Full Article at:
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6006226&cKey=1123928416000 .......................................................................................
Posted bt Neil at WWW below:
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