US guards kill Iraqis civilains

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[b]The real story of Baghdad's Bloody Sunday [/b]

Six days ago, at least 28 civilians died in a shooting

incident involving the US security company Blackwater.

But what actually happened? Kim Sengupta reports from

the scene of the massacre

INDEPENDENT - Friday 21 September 2007

The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious,

round after round mowing down terrified men women and

children, slamming into cars as they collided and

overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape.

Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol

tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of

them, trapped in the flames.

The shooting on Sunday, by the guards of the American

private security company Blackwater, has sparked one

of the most bitter and public disputes between the

Iraqi government and its American patrons, and brings

into sharp focus the often violent conduct of the

Western private armies operating in Iraq since the

2003 invasion, immune from scrutiny or prosecution.

Blackwater's security men are accused of going on an

unprovoked killing spree. Hassan Jabar Salman, a

lawyer, was shot four times in the back, his car

riddled with eight more bullets, as he attempted to

get away from their convoy. Yesterday, sitting swathed

in bandages at Baghdad's Yarmukh Hospital, he recalled

scenes of horror. "I saw women and children jump out

of their cars and start to crawl on the road to escape

being shot," said Mr Salman. "But still the firing

kept coming and many of them were killed. I saw a boy

of about 10 leaping in fear from a minibus, he was

shot in the head. His mother was crying out for him,

she jumped out after him, and she was killed. People

were afraid."

At the end of the prolonged hail of bullets Nisoor

Square was a scene of carnage with bodies strewn

around smouldering wreckage. Ambulances trying to pick

up the wounded found their path blocked by crowds

fleeing the gunfire.

Yesterday, the death toll from the incident, according

to Iraqi authorities, stood at 28. And it could rise

higher, say doctors, as some of the injured, hit by

high-velocity bullets at close quarter, are unlikely

to survive.

With public anger among Iraqis showing no sign of

abating, the US administration has suspended all land

movement by officials outside the heavily fortified

Green Zone.

The Iraqi government has revoked Blackwater's licence

to operate but it still remains employed by the US

government. The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice,

has, however, promised a "transparent" inquiry into

what happened.

Blackwater and the US State Department maintain that

the guards opened fire in self-defence as they reacted

to a bomb blast and then sniper fire. Amid continuing

accusations and recriminations, The Independent has

tried to piece together events on that day.

The reports we got from members of the public, Iraqi

security personnel and government officials, as well

as our own research, leads to a markedly different

scenario than the American version. There was a bomb

blast. But it was too far away to pose any danger to

the Blackwater guards, and their State Department

charges. We have found no Iraqi present at the scene

who saw or heard sniper fire.

Witnesses say the first victims of the shootings were

a couple with their child, the mother and infant

meeting horrific deaths, their bodies fused together

by heat after their car caught fire. The contractors,

according to this account, also shot Iraqi soldiers

and police and Blackwater then called in an attack

helicopter from its private air force which inflicted

further casualties.

Blackwater disputes most of this. In a statement the

company declared that those killed were "armed

insurgents and our personnel acted lawfully and

appropriately in a war zone protecting American

lives".

The day after the killings, Mirenbe Nantongo, a

spokeswoman for the US embassy, said the Blackwater

team had " reacted to a car bombing". The embassy's

information officer, Johann Schmonsees, stressed " the

car bomb was in proximity to the place where State

Department personnel were meeting, and that was the

reason why Blackwater responded to the incident" .

Those on the receiving end tell another story. Mr

Salman said he had turned into Nisoor Square behind

the Blackwater convoy when the shooting began. He

recalled: "There were eight foreigners in four utility

vehicles, I heard an explosion in the distance and

then the foreigners started shouting and signalling

for us to go back. I turned the car around and must

have driven about a hundred feet when they started

shooting. My car was hit with 12 bullets it turned

over. Four bullets hit me in the back and another in

the arm. Why they opened fire? I do not know. No one,

I repeat no one, had fired at them. The foreigners had

asked us to go back and I was going back in my car, so

there was no reason for them to shoot."

Muhammed Hussein, whose brother was killed in the

shooting, said: "My brother was driving and we saw a

black convoy ahead of us. Then I saw my brother

suddenly slump in the car. I dragged him out of the

car and saw he had been shot in the chest. I tried to

hide us both from the firing, but then I realised he

was already dead."

Jawad Karim Ali was on his way to pick up his aunt

from Yarmukh Hospital when shooting started and the

windscreen exploded cutting his face. " Then I was hit

on my left shoulder by bullets, two of them another

one went past my face. Now my aunt is out of hospital

and I am sitting here. There was a big bang further

away but no shots before the security people fired,

and they just kept firing."

Baghdad's "Bloody Sunday" has become a test of

sovereignty between the powers of the Iraqi government

and the US. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki,

said: "We will not tolerate the killing of our

citizens in cold blood." The shooting was, he said,

the seventh of its kind involving Blackwater.

The company, which has its headquarters in North

Carolina, is one of the largest beneficiaries of the

lucrative occupation dividend, holding the contract to

provide security for top-level American officials.

Its reputation in Iraq is particularly controversial.

It was the lynching of four of the company's employees

in 2004 which led to the bloody confrontation in

Fallujah. The men's bodies were set on fire, dragged

through the streets and then hung from a bridge.

Blackwater personnel are recognisable from their

"uniform" of wraparound sunglasses and body armour

over dark coloured sweatshirts and helmets. Employees

are thought to earn about $600 (£300) per day.

Sunday's shooting happened at Mansour, once one of the

most fashionable districts of Baghdad, with roads

flanked by shops selling expensive goods, restaurants

and art galleries. In the height of the sectarian

bloodletting between Shias and Sunnis earlier this

year dead bodies would be regularly strewn in the

streets. A semblance of safety has returned since, and

Mansour was held up as an example of how the US

military "surge" was cutting the violence.

We were in Mansour on Sunday when we heard the sound

of a deafening explosion just after midday. Black

plumes of smoke rose from a half-blasted National

Guard (army) post near a mosque. Five or six minutes

afterwards there was the sound of prolonged shooting

towards the south.

Police Captain Ali Ibrahim, who was on duty near

Nisoor Square, said: " We heard the bomb go off, it

was very loud, but it wasn't at the square. The police

were, in fact, trying to clear the way for the

contractors when they became agitated, they opened

fire. No one was shooting at them."

Asked about the witness accounts, Ali al-Dabbagh, an

Iraqi government spokesman, confirmed: "The traffic

policemen were trying to open the road for them. It

was a crowded square and one small car did not stop,

it was moving very slowly. They started shooting

randomly, there was a couple and their child inside

the car and they were hit."

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