BAGHDAD, May 22, 2008
U.S. Airstrike Kills Iraqi Children
Attack North Of Baghdad Aimed At Al Qaeda Fighters Kills Eight Civilians
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(CBS/AP)
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Associated Press TV News footage showed the bodies of three children in blood-drenched clothes, along with the bodies of five men, at the hospital in Beiji, where the dead were taken after Wednesday evening's strike.
Beiji police Col. Mudhher al-Qaisi said the eight were civilian farmers who were fleeing in their vehicle from an area outside the town where U.S. forces were conducting raids. He said the helicopter became suspicious of the vehicle and opened fire.
The U.S. military said U.S. forces were targeting an al Qaeda in Iraq weapons storage facility believed connected to a suicide bombing network. It said the helicopter opened fire on the vehicle when some of its occupants "exhibited hostile intent," and that children in the vehicle were killed.
The military statement did not specify the total number of people killed or elaborate on how the vehicle showed hostile intent. It and al-Qaisi said two children were killed, and the reason for the discrepancy with the footage from the hospital was not known.
The U.S. military "sincerely regrets when any innocent civilians are injured, resulting from terrorists locating themselves in and around them. We take every precaution to protect innocent civilians and engage only hostile threats," said spokesman Col. Jerry O'Hara in the statement.
The civilian deaths could strain ties between the U.S. military and Sunni Arabs who have turned against al Qaeda in Iraq and have joined American forces in fighting Sunni insurgents in regions west and north of Baghdad. Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, lies in a largely Sunni Arab area.
In other developments:
that militants were increasing their activity elsewhere. Skirmishes
broke out in some nearby districts, including a clash that the U.S.
military said killed 11 Shiite gunmen.
The strike comes as the U.S. is trying to ease Iraqi anger over the shooting of a copy of the Quran by an American sniper, who used Islam's holy book for target practice.
In Afghanistan, a protest over the Quran shooting turned violent, leaving a NATO soldier and two demonstrators dead, after protesters began throwing stones at police and troops, a NATO spokesman said. Police opened fire on the protesters, killing two. The soldier was also killed by gunfire but it was not clear by whom.
Iraq has not seen any street protests over the Quran shooting, which took place earlier this month in a Sunni Arab area west of Baghdad. But Iraqi leaders have loudly denounced the act, prompting a series of apologies from U.S. military commanders and President George W. Bush. The U.S. military says the sniper was disciplined and removed from Iraq.
The incidents come as Iraqi forces have launched a series of campaigns to impose their control in areas dominated by armed groups. On May 10, they began a sweep of the northern city of Mosul to root out al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents.
On Tuesday, some 10,000 Iraqi soldiers and police deployed in Baghdad's Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, for years the unquestioned bastion of the Mahdi Army, loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The deployment has gone peacefully after a truce reached after weeks of fighting between the Mahdi Army and U.S.-Iraqi forces.
But militia violence has increased in neighboring parts of eastern Baghdad. For the second night in a row, clashes erupted in the nearby district of Obeidi late Wednesday. Iraqi police officials said three civilians were killed in the fighting, including an Iraqi television cameraman, Wissam Ali Auda, of Afaq TV.
The 30-year-old Auda was apparently caught in the crossfire on his way home, said Tariq Maher, a correspondent for Afaq TV, which is affiliated with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party. The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
A second journalist was killed north of Baghdad. The bullet-riddled body of Hashim al-Hussein, a correspondent for the Sharq newspaper, was found dumped near the city of Baqouba, police and morgue officials said.
Al-Hussein, 35, was kidnapped Tuesday near his home in the Tahrir area, a former al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold in Baqouba that has recently seen a decline in violence, and his body was found in nearby Buhriz, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Excluding the two deaths reported Thursday, at least 127 journalists and 50 media workers have been killed in Iraq since the war started, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Meanwhile, al-Maliki met with the country's most influential Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Thursday to discuss his government crackdowns. Besides the Mosul and Sadr City operations, Iraqi troops have been conducting a sweep in the southern city of Basra since late March, targeting Shiite militiamen.
Al-Maliki met al-Sistani at the cleric's office in the southern Shiite city of Najaf. Afterward, the premier suggested the ayatollah - who does not talk to journalists - condones his government's moves to rein in armed groups.
"The religious authority always takes care of Iraq and its affairs, but it doesn't get into the details," al-Maliki told reporters. "It recommends that weapons must be only in the government's hand and it recommends as well respect for the government's dignity."
Al-Maliki also discussed upcoming provincial elections along with negotiations over a long-term security agreement with the Americans that is expected to replace a U.N. mandate later this year, according to the adviser, Yassin Majid.
Al-Sistani, who has enormous influence among Iraq's Shiite majority, has called on the government to "be careful" to protect the interest of Iraqis in the negotiations.
© MMVIII, 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 173 Comments
- Man, those Taliban have dry sticks for arms. In America, weight lifting is required. Nothing like anabolics and 500 pounds of steel. The United States has the money. This world cannot stand a bunch of paupers with attitude. Qada Iraq should learn. No one wins a war with a weak back and addle mind.
- Reply to this comment
- petrol49
I like the idea, but what i would really like is to feed him pork before he dies so he knows he will no be with Allah. Then he could burn in hell with his 72 virgin **** men. - Reply to this comment
- Hey patriot, how about I crack Bin Laden''s head like a raw egg and eat it!
- Reply to this comment
- In the name of patriotism, we have participated in a planned deception to create a state of permanent war. In the name of profit, America has been sacrificed on the altar of the god of war, to create a global empire based on the mass-marketing of death.
%u201CWe are opposed...by a ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the [war] with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match...%u201D %u2013John F Kennedy, 1961. - Reply to this comment
- Bin Laden and Zawahiri are indeed a happy, gay couple. They terrorize the world with threats and murders of children. Homosexuals like Bin Laden and Zawahiri have no reason to live. The world community sees them as anarchists, perverts, and bizarre killers.
- Reply to this comment
- "I guess libs see middle eastern people below them. Not worth the fight."
I am a republican and I don''''t see them being worth the fight. I DO see middle eastern people below Euopeans. Europeans don''''t behead people any more.
And we Europeans dont kill children . - Reply to this comment
- petrol49
Ben ladn is already living in a hole in the ground in southern Philippines. - Reply to this comment
- McVET
I disagree. If McCAIN gets elected in four years our country won''t exist. If obama gets elected and lives long enough we will be under arab rule. At least tyhen maybe we can get gas for 12 cents a gallon also. - Reply to this comment
- komocents
When you are flying a helicopter i doubt the pilot even saw there were children in the vehicle. It said the occupants acted aggressively. If they hadn''t acted aggressively they wouldn''t have been attacked. If they hadn''t been hiding behind children the children would still be alive. - Reply to this comment
- andrew-693
You are just a terrorist or a sympathyzer, either way you don''t deserve to live in this country. Go join your friends in Al Quaida. Go hide in a hole lie they do. They do not have the guts to fight like men, they send their women and children to blow us up. They are afraid to stand up and fight for what they say they believe in. Join the cowardly *** and leave this country a better place with your not being in it. - Reply to this comment
- Islam should strongly condemn the suicidal mass murder of 73 school children in Afghanistan last year but I don''t hear one word against it, instead Islam riots about some nobody loser who shot up a paper book, this is upside down and does not make good sense, this makes Islam look like radical idiots with no sense of justice at all.
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- Posted by notblue at 01:25 PM : May 23, 2008
F*ck off notblue, you POS. You know none of that is true, so why so you post it? I served this country for seven years of my life and I won''t be spoken to like that, especially by the likes you you. Are you that spitefful and hateful that you just have to strike out with lies? Saying those things makes you sound like an idiot and I''ve had enough of you. - Reply to this comment
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml- Reply to this comment
- Man, that Al Qada is a bunch of closet f''ags. Homosexuals like that don''t deserve to live. I''d like to take Bin Laden and stuff him down a hole in the ground.
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- democrat122,,, Unfortunatly, you can''t kill them all nor convert them to Cristianity as some think.. And air strikes killing kids doesn''t help, it tends to **** off the locals if you haven''t noticed.
- Reply to this comment
- Shame, CBS news! The title to this article should more appropriately read "Terrorists use Children as Shields" - I served in Afganistan, and these SOBs routinely fire at US and local personnel from inside occupied school buildings or busy apartments. They are cowards who willingly endanger the lives of their own people and then go on TV raving about how its all the fault of the US soldiers who fired back in self defense. Cowards, all of them.
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- notblue,,,, Failures divide this country, Lies divide this country, Wars with no good outcome for our country or end in site divide this country.
Gas at $4.19, food, medical, education costs skyrocketing & no end in site dividew this country.
GOP''s concept of fixing things by ''digging the hole deeper'' divides this country - Reply to this comment
- j-whitman, your nothing more than an ignoramous, you are in no position to tell anyonne what divides and what unites this country, you are one of the most divisive anti-American ingrates I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE TO COME IN CONTACT WITH. AS YOU WOULD SAY "CAN YOU SEE MY MIDDLE FINGER RISING FOR YOU"?
- Reply to this comment
- notblue,,, Maybe you should start to understand the difficulties we are facing in Iraq before you vote for more of the same lies & failures --- Our troops would benifit.
Here''s a good article on what''s in our future in Iraq from the real leader in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani ... It''s only likely to get worse.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24779984/ - Reply to this comment
- notblue,,,,, Get off the ignorant "Blame America" rhetoric, it not only solves nothing, it costs American lives & our national security. ---- This war which didn''t need to happen has cost this nation greatly.
- Reply to this comment
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