BAGHDAD, Nov. 27, 2007
GIs Fire On Iraqi Bus, Kill At Least 5
Dead At Military Checkpoint Include Child; Elsewhere, 2 U.S. Soldiers Killed
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U.S. soldiers from the 3rd Brigade combat team of 101st Airborne Division look through scopes on their rifles during a patrol mission in the town of Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Nov. 26, 2007. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
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The shooting in Baghdad took place in a northern neighborhood known to be a Shiite militia stronghold as the driver collected employees of the Rasheed bank, police said. U.S. troops fired warning shots when the bus reached the U.S. roadblock Tuesday morning and tried to drive through, killing as many as four passengers - including three women, police and hospital officials said.
"As I understand it, some of the warning fire ricocheted and may have killed two to three individuals," said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman.
Smith said the driver was traveling in a lane restricted to passenger cars. In an earlier statement, the U.S. military said two people were killed in the shooting and four wounded. A manager at Rasheed bank also said the shooting claimed two lives.
A Rasheed employee wearing a bloodied white T-shirt who was hospitalized after the shooting said the passengers initially did not know whether the bus had been hit by bullets or bombs. He said U.S. troops immediately came to the bus to help
"Later, we found out that the American forces opened fire at us. But the thing that I cannot comprehend is that the same Americans who opened fire at us, came immediately to help us," the man, who identified himself only as Yasir, told AP Television News.
During a U.S. operation Monday against al Qaeda in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, American troops shot at a vehicle speeding toward a roadblock after firing warning shots, the U.S. military said in a separate statement. Two men in the vehicle were killed immediately, and a child traveling with them died later of his wounds.
"We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces work diligently to rid this country of the terrorist networks that threaten the security of Iraq and our forces," Cmdr. Ed Buclatin, a U.S. spokesman, said in the statement. Two terror suspects were killed earlier in the operation, the military said.
In other developments:
The Shaab neighborhood in northern Baghdad where Tuesday's shooting took place is the same district where masked gunmen on Sunday killed 11 relatives of a journalist critical of the Iraqi government, according to colleagues and the media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf, however, denied the Sunday killings had taken place. "The killing of the 11 family members did not take place and that is totally confirmed," he told The Associated Press Tuesday.
In Amman, in neighboring Jordan, the journalist challenged the Iraqi government's account and accused the Interior Ministry forces of involvement in the deaths. Dhia al-Kawaz said they raided a wake in Iraq for his slain family Tuesday in the predominantly Shiite city of Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, tearing down banners commemorating the dead.
Al-Kawaz, who has lived outside Iraq for 20 years, said the killing of his family members was "a message to me and to any journalist inside Iraq or outside Iraq who opposes the policies of the Iraqi government."
Around Baqouba, the capital of violent Diyala province about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, a suicide bomber targeting the local police headquarters killed six people, including three women, according to police. East of the city, mortar rounds apparently targeting a local radio station instead landed near homes in the vicinity, killing two people, while a roadside bombing killed one civilian, police said.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 144 Comments
- singinrick...re puke:
judge not lest ye be judged......
reference: Somewhere in that bible of yours. - Reply to this comment
- And now a US air strike on a "insurgent" camp has killed 14 innocent Afghan road workers who had been involved in building roads.
Smart bombs in dumb hands means dead civilians. - Reply to this comment
- FloydZepp is booooooooring. Loves to read his own posts.
- Reply to this comment
- Floyd Zepp = transgender pedo
- Reply to this comment
- "the thing that I cannot comprehend is that the same Americans who opened fire at us, came immediately to help us"
War makes victims of us all. Bush should have known that before he opened fire. - Reply to this comment
- They sure did fire warning shots - straight into the bus and into the Iraqi civilians.
- Reply to this comment
- Maybe these kind of troops should be stoned by the Iraqies
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- More innocent civilian dead. Bush is WAY AHEAD of Osama in the dead civilian count.
Cheney/Bush LIED us into this Needless War of Death and Destruction. Is it worth the 3,800 Dead Troops, the $600 Billion, the thousands of maimed US soldiers, the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis..??
YES! If you are a filthy rich SOB driving your gas-guzzling Hummer and enjoying you massive tax cut. Why not invade and steal the Oil? There is nothing wrong with living in a brutal empire when you are at the top of the heap. If you don''t care about the death you cause, it''s great! - Reply to this comment
- Kill them in order to save them, ala Vietnam all over again.
Brilliant! - Reply to this comment
- Oh, speak, you make me laugh. If you think things are going good in Iraq your a used car salesman dream.
- Reply to this comment
- "Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the U.S. commander in northern Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that al Qaeda cells still operate in all the key cities in northern Iraq. Militants have been pushed east to his area from Anbar after local tribes have allied with U.S. forces against al Qaeda, he said. Others have been pushed north from the Baghdad region, where this year%u2019s U.S. troops escalation has made more operations possible, he said."
Very good, FloydZepp, you are starting to quote now instead of blindly shooting your mouth off. That is something worthy of a post.
Yes, al Qaeda cells still operate in the North. They are being denied santuary in Baghdad because of the growing number of alliances with US troops in amongst the population. With the relative peace, compared to when al qaeda was prevelent in Baghdad, don''t you believe the locals will start to notice cause and effect ?
Once they understand this, and can get themselves organized enough, they can protect themselves from al qaeda. This means we can go North and push them out of there, without fear they will effectively come back to baghdad. - Reply to this comment
- CBS reports, "U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday signed a deal... for a potential long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq... "
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Bush promised, "When the Iraqis stand up, we''ll stand down." But now Bush openly reconsiders lingering on in Iraq with US troops, despite massive opposition from the American public.
The fraud on the American people is naked enough-- Bush, Cheney and their neocon circles had no intention of leaving Iraq, after all. Certain factors suggest Bush intends to make Iraq a permanent American force-projection base-- the ten US military superbases and the billion-dollar embassy guarantee that whatever Bush said about troop withdrawal is null and void. The cover story now becomes "al-Maliki wants us there".
Yet, the Iraqi people and the American people do not, and by a decisive margin. Iraqis two-to-one, for example, defy the current Bush demand they open their oil to US and EU oil firms.
Is there any doubt the ultimate objective of invading Iraq was oil, all along? Even Greenspan now acknowleges what Iraqis and the world suspect-- Bush, Cheney and their oil industry friends are after the richest reserves of high-grade crude oil in the world, after Saudi Arabia (much of it still unassessed).
Iraqscam! Four thousand Americans dead, thousands wounded, $500 billion spent for a criminal fraud on the American people. - Reply to this comment
- speakinup, how about speaking up and letting us know where you duhhh...byaKKKons finally found those WMD''s to take us to this undeclared "war"?
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- What rock have you been under trillion1 ? We are seen as the lesser of two evils. Fact is in Baghdad people are allying themselves with us to get rid of the insurgents that kill indiscriminately.
To ignore or refute this trend only shows your ignorance of the true condition on the ground.
Read the news before you flap your lips with the far left mantras, will you. It makes you look a lot more intelligent to site something that at least supports your point of view rather than recite the old news. - Reply to this comment
- The insurgants can''t go underground? In a country where 70% of the people want us gone. How many Iraqi''s have lost family or friends because of bush''s invasion?
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- ********** - aren''t you the liberal that thought I was jealous because just you hears the voices telling you all about the War on Terrorism ?
I enjoy the news and truth too much to be involved with yor rantings zipper...
Like you''d know any of our brave servicemen back from either location ! That''s a laugh.
BTW, I''m not your ''buddy'' - I don''t associate with mental cases, uh, far left liberals, for the most part. - Reply to this comment
- ********** - aka FloydZepp - sure doesn''t understand does he ?
You can''t go underground in a city where people don''t want you. People know their neighbors, and have come to realize the US forces are an infinitly better situation than insurgent forces.
Probably some highschool drop out, who''s mother bought him a PC so he wouldn''t get in trouble. Go back to the x-rated sites **********. - Reply to this comment
- Floyd Zepp = transgender pedo
- Reply to this comment
- Progress is relative. Casualties are down 2/3 because of the surge, but if you are in the other 1/3 it doesnt feel like progress.
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- FloydZepp:
and, when you refer to me in your post (I know you are obsessed with me) capitalize my name numbnuts. - Reply to this comment
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