Home > Iraqi Freedom: Mother and Father Shot in front of children
Iraqi Freedom: Mother and Father Shot in front of children
by Open-Publishing - Friday 21 January 200511 comments
Edito Wars and conflicts International
It was a routine foot patrol. As we made our way up a broad boulevard, in the distance I could see a car making its way toward us. As a defence against potential car bombs, it is now standard practice for foot patrols to stop oncoming vehicles, particularly after dark.
"We have a car coming," someone called out, as we entered an intersection. We could see the car about 100 metres away. It kept coming; I could hear its engine now, a high whine that sounded more like acceleration than slowing down. It was maybe 50 yards away now. "Stop that car!" someone shouted out, seemingly simultaneously with someone firing what sounded like warning shots - a staccato measured burst.
The car continued coming. And then, perhaps less than a second later, a cacophony of fire, shots rattling off in a chaotic overlapping din. The car entered the intersection on its momentum and still shots were penetrating it and slicing it. Finally the shooting stopped, the car drifted listlessly, clearly no longer being steered, and came to a rest on a kerb. Soldiers began to approach it warily. The sound of children crying came from the car. I walked up to the car and a teenaged girl with her head covered emerged from the back, wailing and gesturing wildly. After her came a boy, tumbling on to the ground from the seat, already leaving a pool of blood.
"Civilians!" someone shouted, and soldiers ran up. More children - it ended up being six all told - started emerging, crying, their faces mottled with blood in long streaks. The troops carried them all off to a nearby sidewalk.
It was by now almost completely dark. There, working only by lights mounted on ends of their rifles, an Army medic began assessing the children’s injuries, running his hands up and down their bodies, looking for wounds.
Incredibly, the only injuries were to a girl who suffered a cut hand and a boy with a superficial gash in the small of his back that was bleeding heavily but was not life-threatening. The medic immediately began to bind it, while the boy crouched against a wall.
From the pavement I could see into the bullet-mottled windshield more clearly, the driver of the car, a man, was penetrated by so many bullets that his skull had collapsed, leaving his body grotesquely disfigured. A woman also lay dead in the front, still covered in her Muslim clothing and harder to see.
Meanwhile, the children continued to wail and scream, huddled against a wall, sandwiched between soldiers either binding their wounds or trying to comfort them. The Army’s translator later told me that this was a Turkoman family and that the teenaged girl kept shouting, "Why did they shoot us? We have no weapons! We were just going home!" After a delay in getting the armoured vehicles lined up and ready, the convoy moved to the main Tal Afar hospital.
The young children were carried in by soldiers and by their teenaged sister. Only the boy with the gash on his back needed any further medical attention, and the Army medic and an Iraqi doctor quickly chatted over his prognosis, deciding that his wound would be easily repaired. The Army told me that it would probably launch a full investigation.
Chris Hondros is a photographer with Getty Images and is embedded with US troops
Forum posts
21 January 2005, 07:13
The USA is sinking deeper and deeper into a horrible abyss of senseless violence, in the name of democracy? Actually Cheney and Bush and the boys on capitol hill, just use that as a war cry to brutilize a small nation that probably had nothing to do with 911.
In fact 911 was so covered up by the US, that it seems like an inside job.
Sickening display of violence. If I was there, I would throw down my gun and walk home!
21 January 2005, 11:03
Still ’winning hearts and minds’ and spreading freedom US style -hey sell those kids a Big Mac !!
21 January 2005, 20:11
"probably had nothing to do with 911"
There is no shred of evidence, nor has there ever been that Iraq was in any way involved in 9/11
A lie told often enough even at some point pulls those who don’t believe to "probably"
But that is what liers are masters at. They know if they spin a story long enough everything becomes confused and at some point most will start to believe them.
Bush’s invasion of Iraq has always been merely an inner wish to go beyond what his father would have done.
It is psychology 301
And those who thought they would get into the act - including Blair - followed on the bandwagon - and the US taxpaying purse can utilize a huge bandwagon of followers, even if it is deficit fictional money.
So these children are now orphens, as are so many others, and death struts the land, and at some point the US people are going to have to pay not just in money for their stupidy. Because Karma does win out, even if it is "unto the next upon the next generation."
22 January 2005, 05:17
>Bush’s invasion of Iraq has always been merely an inner wish to go beyond what his father would have done.
It is psychology 301
It’s more than that. It’s been planned as far back as 1997. Read about "The Project for the New American Century":
http://www.bushpresident2004.com/pnac.htm
(BTW the above is not an official Bush/Cheney site)
The Official Website of PNAC:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/index.html
24 January 2005, 05:59
The bravest thing to do now, by the soldiers would be to ALL do as you sais and refust to keep fighting! They have power in numbers, we mUST stop this killing, in the name of Bush.
The lives of ALL the soldiers over there will NEVER be the same!
This is W. and Rummy’s War, let their families fight it. Let the families of all who really voted for W. fight it.
Bring the soldiers home and end the senseless killing of hundreds of thousands of innocents.
IS THIS DEMOCRACY???
We must stand up and get active!
22 January 2005, 06:43
And this happened while that bastard was having his 57 million dollar party. What kind of people, (if they survive) will our children be when they get back from this hell we have created? I am so ashamed. C. Pierson, USA
1 February 2005, 04:55
I happened to be surfing between this page (Mother and Father shot in front of children) and the official whitehouse page trumpeting the obscene "Celebration Of Freedom" - Inauguration of GW Bush. As I was flipping between images of one of the planet’s greatest mass-murderers enjoying their teary "Celebration [Of Mass Murder and Mayhem]" and the real world where this poor innocent family was blown apart by the increasingly out-of-control violence sweeping Iraq - and soon to spread to Iran and other places, I felt sickened to the point of fainting. I could not believe that I would live in a world where this could happen. All Americans (indeed the western world) should be deeply, deeply, troubled and ashamed that this atrocity is allowed to happen and continue.
22 January 2005, 16:58
I heard this on the BBC around noon on Friday. It was gut-wrenching! Those poor, poor babies! Their poor parents, senselessly murdered.
I know there are car bombs over there daily. I know the troops are scared. Now they are also scarred. How does one face themselves after being part of such carnage?
The blood is on Bush’s hands and of those who voted for him!
May God, Allah and the world have mercy on us.
May Bush and his cronies be held accountable for their spreading of "freedom". Aka War Crimes!
Lana
24 January 2005, 18:21
It far past the time to raise our rebel chant and storm the White House, Congress and Senate and convert the whole of these seething evil institutions into shelters for the homeless; and build up a new nation concieved in consensus, justice, freedom and social and environmental responsibility, so our children and grand children have a world worth living in.
2 May 2006, 20:12
bush is stupid for making us fight.. killing all innocent people because of peoples do wrongs.. one of those people named bush.. some of the iraq (not all) are stupid for killing their own people by putting bombs in their car and driving by iraq’s trying 2 kill the american troops.. i agree with most people, have bush and the people that voted for him fight eachother.. dont kill people who want NOTHING to do with this.. all the kids dont know what to think anymore, they dont know whats going on, we’re setting a bad example on our kids today.... and one question alot of people are wanting to know now..............WHAT HAPPEND TO FREEDOM?
7 February 2005, 05:36
The photo of the young boy frozen in terror against the wall paints the picture of this war. A young mind, unable to comprehend the terror that has just instantly and forever altered his life. It’s heartbreaking that if it wasn’t for a handful of rich, neo-conservative white men on the other side of the world, this little boy would still have his parents in his life. Obviously they are poor and now without parents, what will their lives be like. I would like to initiate a fund-raising for them, but have very little information about the family to go on. It is heartbreaking!