US Air Strike Kills Iraqi Family of 12

The Washington Post
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Tuesday 03 January 2006

Attack was directed at suspected bombers, US military says.

Tikrit - A U.S. air strike that Americans said was directed at suspected bombers killed a family of 12 in their home north of Baghdad Monday night, Iraqi officials said Tuesday. A Washington Post special correspondent watched as rescuers removed the bodies of women and children still in their nightclothes.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, confirmed the air strike in the Baiji area, about 155 miles north of the capital, but said he had no immediate information on casualties.

In a statement, the U.S. military said an unmanned drone in the area had tracked three men digging in a road about 9 p.m. Monday. Insurgents commonly plant bombs in such craters to catch passing convoys of U.S. and Iraqi officials.

The military called in air support, tracked the three men as they entered a building nearby and attacked the building with precision-guided munitions, the military said.

Maj. Abdul Jabbar Kaissi, a security officer with Salahuddin governorate, said the air strike killed the 12-member family of Ghadban Nahi Kaissi, a farmer and relative of the governor of Salahuddin province, Ahmad Mahmud Kaissi. U.S. forces surrounded the area Tuesday morning as bulldozers removed rubble and emergency crews pulled out bodies. The Post special correspondent watched as crews removed the bloody body of an older woman, her head covered in a black scarf, and two younger women in nightclothes with their heads uncovered for sleep.

Rescuers brought out the bodies of three boys on their thin mattresses. They were wrapped in the blankets in which search teams said the boys had been sleeping when the explosives hit. The boys appeared younger than 10.

Residents and Iraqi officials said there were no insurgents in the home. The area is one where insurgents are present and stage frequent attacks.

Six other houses in the area were damaged, and two residents wounded, authorities said.

U.S. air strikes in Iraq increased almost five-fold over the course of 2005, going from 25 last January to 120 in November. The U.S. military says it uses only precision-guided munitions and makes every effort to minimize civilian casualties. Critics say civilian casualties are almost inevitable in air strikes in cities and towns, and they fault the military for not tracking civilian deaths from those strikes to better learn how to reduce them.

--My God

My. God.

MERCY

MERCY

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