Iraqi officials said a U.S. helicopter fired on a wedding party Wednesday morning in western Iraq, killing more than 40 people, including children. U.S. officials confirmed an airstrike near the Syrian border, but they told NBC News that the incident involved an AC-130 warship — not a helicopter — and that the aircraft returned fire after coming under attack from militants.
...Most of the bodies on the APTN videotape were wrapped in blankets and other cloths, but the footage showed at least eight uncovered, bloody bodies, several of them children. One of the children was headless.
“We received about 40 martyrs today, mainly women and children below the age of 12,” Hamdy al-Lousy, the director of Qaim hospital, told the Dubai-based satellite television station Al-Arabiya, which reported that 41 people were killed and 10 injured in the attack. “We also have 11 people wounded, most of them in critical condition.”
Al-Arabiya showed pictures of several shrouded bodies lined up on a dirt road. Men were shown digging graves and lowering bodies, one of a child, into the pits while relatives wept.
...Associated Press Television News obtained videotape showing a truck containing bodies of people who were allegedly killed in the incident. Iraqis interviewed on the tape said partygoers were firing in the air in traditional wedding celebration and said U.S. troops had previously mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.
But the coalition described the attack as part of “a military operation against a suspected foreign fighter safe house in the open desert.”
“During the operation, coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided,” it said. Afterward, “coalition forces on the ground recovered numerous weapons, 2 million Iraqi and Syrian dinar, foreign passports and a SATCOM radio.”
article
...Most of the bodies on the APTN videotape were wrapped in blankets and other cloths, but the footage showed at least eight uncovered, bloody bodies, several of them children. One of the children was headless.
“We received about 40 martyrs today, mainly women and children below the age of 12,” Hamdy al-Lousy, the director of Qaim hospital, told the Dubai-based satellite television station Al-Arabiya, which reported that 41 people were killed and 10 injured in the attack. “We also have 11 people wounded, most of them in critical condition.”
Al-Arabiya showed pictures of several shrouded bodies lined up on a dirt road. Men were shown digging graves and lowering bodies, one of a child, into the pits while relatives wept.
...Associated Press Television News obtained videotape showing a truck containing bodies of people who were allegedly killed in the incident. Iraqis interviewed on the tape said partygoers were firing in the air in traditional wedding celebration and said U.S. troops had previously mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.
But the coalition described the attack as part of “a military operation against a suspected foreign fighter safe house in the open desert.”
“During the operation, coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided,” it said. Afterward, “coalition forces on the ground recovered numerous weapons, 2 million Iraqi and Syrian dinar, foreign passports and a SATCOM radio.”
There's your official report. Who are you going to believe?
