Amid confusion, Iraq Shi'ites accuse U.S. troops (Reuters)

Amid confusion, Iraq Shi'ites accuse U.S. troops

Mon Mar 27, 2006 4:23 AM IST

By Michael Georgy and Alastair Macdonald


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Politicians from Iraq's Shi'ite majority accused U.S. troops of massacring 20 worshippers at a Baghdad mosque on Sunday but police and residents said many died in clashes between Shi'ite militia fighters and Americans.

U.S. military spokesmen declined comment on the accusations but issued a statement describing a raid by Iraqi special forces, with U.S. advisers, on a building that was not a mosque in roughly the same area. It said 16 insurgents were killed.

Police said U.S. forces clashed with the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, killing 20 fighters.

With Baghdad under night curfew it was impossible to pin down what happened. But unusually strident anti-U.S. coverage on government-run state television showed a fierce confrontation between the ruling Shi'ite Islamists and the U.S. administration.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said the premier was "deeply concerned" and had called the U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, who said there would be a full inquiry.

Also on Sunday, U.S. forces arrested 41 officials from the Shi'ite-controlled Interior Ministry and freed 17 foreigners from a secret jail, government, political and U.S. sources said.

Northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi troops found 30 bodies, many of them beheaded, on a village street. And in the same area around Baquba, police arrested one of their own majors, the brother of the regional police chief, over Shi'ite death squad killings.


snip


http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-03-27T041919Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-242299-2.xml

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek

(From January of last year (2005))

"
. . . Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. . It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.

Also being debated is which agency within the U.S. government—the Defense department or CIA—would take responsibility for such an operation. Rumsfeld’s Pentagon has aggressively sought to build up its own intelligence-gathering and clandestine capability with an operation run by Defense Undersecretary Stephen Cambone. But since the Abu Ghraib interrogations scandal, some military officials are ultra-wary of any operations that could run afoul of the ethics codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That, they argue, is the reason why such covert operations have always been run by the CIA and authorized by a special presidential finding. (In "covert" activity, U.S. personnel operate under cover and the U.S. government will not confirm that it instigated or ordered them into action if they are captured or killed.)"

So it's okay to commit warcrimes, as long as we have 'plausible deniability'?

other threads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2188876
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2185127

Posted on Sun, Mar. 26, 2006

Followers of rebel cleric claim U.S. military killed 17 in mosque raid

By Nancy A. Youssef
Knight Ridder Newspapers


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Supporters of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr said U.S forces killed at least 17 people loyal to Sadr during an apparent raid on a mosque Sunday, but U.S. officials denied they entered or attacked any mosques in Iraq.

Instead, U.S. officials said they conducted a raid around 4 a.m. in a building in a nearby community, killing 16 suspected insurgents who fired on them. In a statement, the U.S. military said they conducted the raid in the northeastern Baghdad neighborhood of Adamiyah to "disrupt a terrorist cell responsible for conducting attacks on Iraqi security and Coalition Forces and kidnapping Iraqi civilians in the local area."

U.S. officials said they freed a non-Western hostage and found a cache of weapons.

Sadr's supporters and a man who said he was an eyewitness said the attack happened three miles away, near the Baghdad slum of Sadr City 14 hours later. They said about a dozen Humvees, accompanied by helicopters, descended on the al Mustafa mosque, where some were praying.

The U.S. military said in a statement that, "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation," which officials said was directed at a terrorist-controlled building.

U.S. officials said in a statement that the 1st Iraqi Special Operations Forces Brigade led the attack and that U.S. Special Forces "were on scene in an advisory capacity only."


snip


http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14193431.htm

from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek
(same article as my previous post)

" . . . a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq . . ."

AP has some nuggets about this attack.

...............................
The Americans said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops killed 16 "insurgents" in a raid on a community meeting hall after gunmen opened fire on approaching troops.

"No mosques were entered or damaged during this operation," the military said. It said a non-Western hostage was freed, but no name or nationality was provided.

Associated Press videotape showed a tangle of dead male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam's living quarters, attached to mosque itself.

The tape showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered about the floor. U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition. A grieving man in white Arab robes stepped among the bodies strewn across the blood-smeared floor.
...............................
More at link
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME

I guess that would qualify as in the area of the mosque, speak of splitting hairs. Funny is't it, in the US it's common to consider ALL rooms attached to a place of worship to be in the same building.