[Media-watch] Fallujah refugees tell of life and death in kill zone - The New Standard - 4/12/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

Related Link used in piece:  "AP Photographer Escapes Fallujah, Witnesses 
U.S. Attacks on Civilians" readable at:
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=7819
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http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1268

Fallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zone
by Dahr Jamail



Journalists and residents who have fled Fallujah share accounts of US troops 
killing unarmed and wounded people; Dahr Jamail continues interviewing 
survivors as images of a city under US assault further emerge.
Baghdad , Dec 3 - Men now seeking refuge in the Baghdad area are telling 
horrific stories of indiscriminate killings by US forces during the peak of 
fighting last month in the largely annihilated city of Fallujah.

In an interview with The NewStandard, Burhan Fasa'a, an Iraqi journalist who 
works for the popular Lebanese satellite TV station, LBC, said he witnessed 
US crimes up close. Burhan Fasa'a, who was in Fallujah for nine days during 
the most intense combat, said Americans grew easily frustrated with Iraqis 
who could not speak English.

"Americans did not have interpreters with them," Fasa'a said, "so they 
entered houses and killed people because they didn't speak English. They 
entered the house where I was with 26 people, and [they] shot people because 
[the people] didn't obey [the soldiers'] orders, even just because the 
people couldn't understand a word of English."

Fasa'a further speculated, "Soldiers thought the people were rejecting their 
orders, so they shot them. But the people just couldn't understand them."

Fasa'a says American troops detained him. They interrogated him specifically 
about working for the Arab media, he said, and held him for three days. Fasa'a 
and other prisoners slept on the ground with no blankets. He said prisoners 
were made to go to the bathroom in handcuffs, using one toilet in the middle 
of the camp.

"During the nine days I was in Fallujah, all of the wounded women, kids and 
old people, none of them were evacuated," Fasa'a said. "They either suffered 
to death, or somehow survived."

Many refugees tell stories of having witnessed US troops killing already 
injured people, including former fighters and noncombatants alike.

"I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks," said 
Kassem Mohammed Ahmed, a resident of Fallujah. "This happened so many 
times."

Other refugees recount similar stories. "I saw so many civilians killed 
there, and I saw several tanks roll over the wounded in the streets," said 
Aziz Abdulla, 27 years old, who fled the fighting last month. Another 
resident, Abu Aziz, said he also witnessed American armored vehicles 
crushing people he believes were alive.

Abdul Razaq Ismail, another resident who fled Fallujah, said: "I saw dead 
bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the American 
snipers. The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates 
near Fallujah."

A man called Abu Hammad said he witnessed US troops throwing Iraqi bodies 
into the Euphrates River. Others nodded in agreement. Abu Hammed and others 
also said they saw Americans shooting unarmed Iraqis who waved white flags.

Believing that American and Iraqi forces were bent on killing anyone who 
stayed in Fallujah, Hammad said he watched people attempt to swim across the 
Euphrates to escape the siege. "Even then the Americans shot them with 
rifles from the shore," he said. "Even if some of them were holding a white 
flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they 
were all shot."

Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein reported witnessing similar 
events. After running out of basic necessities and deciding to flee the city 
at the height of the US-led assault, Hussein ran to the Euphrates.

"I decided to swim," Hussein told colleagues at the AP, who wrote up the 
photographer's harrowing story, "but I changed my mind after seeing US 
helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."

Hussein said he saw soldiers kill a family of five as they tried to traverse 
the Euphrates, before he buried a man by the riverbank with his bare hands.

"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some US 
snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim," Hussein recounted. "I quit 
the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through 
orchards."

A man named Khalil, who asked The NewStandard not to use his last name for 
fear of reprisals, said he had witnessed the shooting of civilians who were 
waving white flags while they tried to escape the city. "They shot women and 
old men in the streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone who tried to get 
their bodies."

"There are bodies the Americans threw in the river," Khalil continued, 
noting that he personally witnessed US troops using the Euphrates to dispose 
of Iraqi dead. "And anyone who stayed thought they would be killed by the 
Americans, so they tried to swim across the river. Even people who couldn't 
swim tried to cross the river. They drowned rather than staying to be killed 
by the Americans," said Khalil.

US military commanders reported at least two incidents during which they say 
Iraqi resistance fighters used white flags to lure Marines into dangerous 
situations, including a well-orchestrated ambush.

Proponents of relaxed rules of engagement for US troops engaged in 
"counter-insurgency" warfare have cited such incidents from last month's 
experience in Fallujah as arguments for more permissive combat regulations. 
Some have said US forces should establish what used to be called "free-fire 
zones," wherein any human being encountered is assumed to be hostile, and 
thus a legitimate target, relieving American infantrymen of their obligation 
to distinguish and protect civilians. But if the stories Fallujan witnesses 
have shared with TNS are accurate, it appears the policy might have preceded 
the argument in this case.

US and Iraqi officials have called the "pacification" of Fallujah a success 
and said that the action was necessary to stabilize Iraq in preparation for 
the country's planned "transition to democracy." The military continues to 
deny US-led forces killed significant numbers of civilians during November's 
nearly constant fighting and bombardment.