No picture, no extra words, just horror:
According to an earlier account, Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, a 35-year-old mother of two, was killed in firing along with her 57-year-old cousin Saliha Mohammed Hassan on May 30 when they were being transported to Samarra General Hospital for Nabiha to give birth.
What was not reported, according to an Iraqi human rights investigator who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity, was that both women were shot in the back of the head by U.S. snipers.
“I investigated this incident myself, and both of these women were shot from behind,” said the investigator. “Nabiha’s brains were splattered on her brother who was driving the car, since she was in the back seat.”
The U.S. military said soldiers fired on the car after it entered a “clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post” after failing to stop despite “repeated visual and auditory warnings.” The U.S. military said in a statement that “shots were fired to disable the vehicle.”
The brother of the pregnant woman, Redam Nisaif Jassim, who was driving the car, told IPS that he neither saw nor heard any warnings by the U.S. military. Two men who witnessed the incident from a nearby home also said they saw no signs of any warning.
“These kinds of killings by the Americans happen daily in Iraq,” said Jassim, “They gave no warning to us before killing my cousin and sister. Of course we know they have no respect for the lives of Iraqis.”
The U.S. military claims the incident is being investigated.
The Haditha slaughter in which 24 Iraqis were killed is under investigation for the incident itself, and further for the cover-up, since the initial report given by the Marine Corps stated only that 15 civilian deaths were caused by a roadside bomb and fighting with insurgents.
In this case too, all signs point to a cover-up. “The area where they were killed by the Americans was completely unmarked,” the human rights investigator told IPS. A warning sign at the place was put up after the two women were killed, he said.
There isn’t any other report of this that I’ve been able to find. There probably never will be. Dahr Jamail’s reporting has held up in the past (including one of the earliest reports on Haditha to appear in English).
Jamail and Hamed offer this estimation of the number of killings of Iraqi civilians by US troops:
The U.S. military recently announced in a Defence Department report provided to Congress that it paid out 19 million dollars in compensation to Iraqis last year — half of which paid out by Marines in al-Anbar province west of Baghdad.
The military claimed the amount was paid in 600 separate incidents, but it is common knowledge in Iraq that the usual payout for a non-combat civilian death is 2,500 dollars.
A payment of 19 million dollars compensation at 2,500 dollars a person would suggest such killings in thousands.
All in our names, to “keep us safe”, to “fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here”. All of this horror, this death and destruction.
IN
OUR
NAMES.
Feel any safer?
