US Troops Kill Iraqi Civilians 8civilians

Apr 01, 2003

<b>BAGHDAD, Tuesday -</b> U.S. troops edgy about suicide attacks killed seven women and children when they opened fire on a civilian vehicle at a military checkpoint at Najaf in a harsh setback to coalition efforts to win the affection of the Iraqi people.

BAGHDAD, Tuesday - U.S. troops edgy about suicide attacks killed seven women and children when they opened fire on a civilian vehicle at a military checkpoint at Najaf in a harsh setback to coalition efforts to win the affection of the Iraqi people.

Only hours after that, US Marines shot dead an unarmed driver and badly wounded his passenger south of Baghdad.

The marines said they fired on a pick-up truck that sped towards them at a checkpoint near the southern town of Shatra fearing that it was a suicide bomber.

Neither the driver nor his passenger were armed.

The first shooting occurred on Monday afternoon, US spokesman Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Owens said.

The US military said it was “very sorry” about the deaths.

“We’re very concerned about it and very sorry that it happened,” Major General Buford Blount, division commander of the Third Infantry Division, said.

But he stressed that with US soldiers on edge after a suicide car bomb attack on Saturday that killed four comrades, the unit that opened fire on the minibus had respected its rules of engagement. There are two different versions of what happened at Najaf.

According to coalition Central Command, the soldiers first fired warning shots, then aimed at the engine, and finally targeted the vehicle itself.

But the Washington Post quotes a senior officer as telling a subordinate: “You killed a family because you didn’t fire a warning shot soon enough.”

The deaths are another blow to U.S. and British hopes of convincing Iraqis to welcome an invasion whose goal is to oust President Saddam Hussein.

As the ground war became more tangled, new explosions hit Baghdad in the 13th day of a conflict that President George W. Bush told Iraqis he would pursue “until your country is free.”

Heavy air raids pummelled the capital’s southern and western outskirts where Republican Guard units man defensive lines.

Huge blasts in Baghdad overnight sent smoke billowing from a compound used by Saddam and his son Qusay. Another explosion set off a fire at the headquarters of the Iraqi Olympic Committee.

Troops have been nervous since a checkpoint suicide car bomb attack killed four U.S. soldiers near Najaf on Saturday. Even in allied Kuwait, U.S. soldiers shot at a car which burst through a checkpoint and into a desert base near the Iraqi border after midnight.

On Monday, U.S. troops fired at a van which failed to stop at a desert checkpoint near Najaf, 160km south of Baghdad, only to find it was full of women and children.

U.S. Central Command said seven of the 13 women and children in the van were killed and two wounded.

But a Washington Post correspondent near the scene said 10 people were killed and suggested troops had fired without giving enough warning.

The women and children killed at the checkpoint near Najaf were the first civilian deaths from U.S. shooting acknowledged by Central Command since the war began.

But correspondents with U.S. units have reported other civilian deaths in gunfire.
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