A U.S. helicopter gunship has fired at a crowd of Iraqis swarming round a burning U.S. vehicle in a Baghdad street and witnesses and officials say 13 people have been killed and 61 wounded in violence in the area.
Reuters article
It's apparently illegal in the New Iraq® to swarm. And justice is swift. Never mind sovereign Iraqi handling; never mind arrested, charged and tried by a jury of your peers and innocent until proven guilty, either.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Update 2:40 pm :
Insurgents hammered central Baghdad on Sunday with one of their most intense mortar and rocket barrages ever in the heart of the capital, heralding a day of violence that killed at least 25 people in the city as security appeared to spiral out of control.
Many of the dead were killed when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq's most-feared terror organization.
The dead from the helicopter strike included Arab television reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi who screamed, ''I'm dying, I'm dying,'' as a cameraman recorded the chaotic scene. An Iraqi cameraman working for the Reuters news agency and an Iraqi freelance photographer for Getty Images were wounded.
Maimed and lifeless bodies of young men and boys lay in the street as the stricken U.S. vehicle was engulfed in flames and thick black smoke. Across the city, at least 104 people were wounded in explosions and barrages, the Health Ministry said.
Boston.com article
Many of the dead were killed when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq's most-feared terror organization.
The dead from the helicopter strike included Arab television reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi who screamed, ''I'm dying, I'm dying,'' as a cameraman recorded the chaotic scene. An Iraqi cameraman working for the Reuters news agency and an Iraqi freelance photographer for Getty Images were wounded.
Maimed and lifeless bodies of young men and boys lay in the street as the stricken U.S. vehicle was engulfed in flames and thick black smoke. Across the city, at least 104 people were wounded in explosions and barrages, the Health Ministry said.
I guess perhaps Baghdad didn't altogether fall after all.
Apparently, the American military came out fighting from their "Green Zone" fortress, which was under attack by mortars and rockets, and a Bradley tank got hit by a car bomb.
This report has a slightly different twist on the U.S. military official statement than the Reuters report above. Maybe there was more than one statement, or maybe they picked two different statements from the same one. At any rate, the Reuters report quoted: "After evacuating the wounded, air support destroyed the Bradley fighting vehicle to prevent looting and harm to the Iraqi people," the U.S. military said in a statement.
And thereafter blasted the crowd from the sky via helicopters. I don't know when strafing quit being classified as harm, but, whatever.
From this Boston.com report:
The helicopters ''fired upon the anti-Iraqi forces and the Bradley preventing the loss of sensitive equipment and weapons,'' the statement said. ''An unknown number of insurgents and Iraq civilians were wounded or killed in the incident.''
"Anti-Iraqi forces"!? Geez, it was the Green Zone they were attacking. Anti-Iraqi forces. For all you chumps.
Iraq's Health Ministry said 13 people were killed and 61 wounded on Haifa Street, though it was not clear how many were killed by the helicopter strike. Scattered shoes, pools of fresh blood and debris littered the street.
''We were standing near the destroyed vehicle when the helicopter started firing, so we rushed to safety in a nearby building,'' Alaa Hassan, 24, said from his hospital bed. ''I went back to the scene to help the wounded people when the helicopter fired again and I was hit in the chest.''
''We were standing near the destroyed vehicle when the helicopter started firing, so we rushed to safety in a nearby building,'' Alaa Hassan, 24, said from his hospital bed. ''I went back to the scene to help the wounded people when the helicopter fired again and I was hit in the chest.''
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