Baghdad security plan puts US forces, civilians perilously close
The US killed three Iraqi civilians earlier this month, highlighting the risks of American troops taking the fight into neighborhoods.
from the April 24, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
Four years into the war, human rights groups complain there is a lack of transparency and adequate compensation by the US military to the families of victims in incidents such as the one in Amel.
"The data is so tightly held [by the US military] that we have a hard time wrapping our heads around the extent of the problem," says Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
And, experts say, the lack of information about incidents in which civilians are killed is preventing the Army from learning from its mistakes, and preventing such incidents in the future. "The information is not making it into lessons learned," says Mr. Garlasco.
Earlier this month, US government documents released by court order to the American Civil Liberties Union showed that only one-third of the families of 479 Iraqi civilians killed by US soldiers between 2003 and 2006 received compensation after filing for claims, while very few incidents were forwarded for further investigation.
The incident in Amel may be a case study in the confusion that rules throughout Baghdad. Khalid Abdel-Jawad, a civil engineer who is a fluent-English speaker, says he's still finding it hard to understand why the US military killed two of his best friends and their mother and continues to hold his wounded teenage brother.
It all started sometime before midnight on Sunday, April 15, when many residents of Amel's 803 block were roused from bed by the sound of gunfire and explosions.
"We all thought it was the Janabat at it again," said Mr. Abdel-Jawad, referring to members of the Janabi tribe to which most of Amel's Sunni Arab residents belong.
Like many neighborhoods in Baghdad, Amel is now clearly segregated along sectarian lines. In this case the fault line is the 130-foot-wide wide Seven Nisan (April) street, the area's main shopping street. Many of the entrances to alleyways on both sides are blocked by concrete barriers and concertina wire, providing physical barriers in a city where the US has already started to build a wall to protect a Sunni enclave. On Monday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a stop to the construction.
RSS feed
