Apaches hit high rise terrorist nest on Haifa street

Reuters:

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U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by Apache attack helicopters and armored Stryker vehicles firing their heavy machine guns fought militants in Haifa Street in a battle that began around daybreak, U.S. military spokesman Major Steven Lamb said.

He said U.S. troops also fired mortars after coming under machinegun, mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack during the operation to restore Iraqi security control of the Sunni insurgent stronghold, which lies within 2 km of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified compound housing Iraq's government.

"A lot has been coming from high-rise buildings. We are firing at terrorists in those buildings," Lamb told Reuters.

He had no details on casualties, but a local resident said he had counted six bodies, all men, one of whom had a rifle lying next to him.

A local journalist said he helped transport 37 wounded people to hospital, including women and children, in three ambulances that managed to get through the security cordon.

Haifa Street, a long thoroughfare of high-rise buildings built by Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s, runs along the west bank of the Tigris River that cuts through the capital.

While the area was too dangerous for journalists to venture into, helicopters could be seen circling overhead amid the repetitive dull thud of mortar fire. U.S. and Iraqi forces said they killed more than 100 militants there earlier this month.

The Iraqi government said then the area was riddled with "terrorist hideouts" and said it had captured many foreign Arab fighters linked to al Qaeda in that operation two weeks ago.

The U.S. military said Wednesday's mission was "not an operation designed solely to target Sunni insurgents, but rather aimed at rapidly isolating all active insurgents and gaining control of this key central Baghdad location."

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The enemy firing from high rise apartments was not as safe as they thought. They were easy targets for the Apache attack helicopters. The story has many elements of what is wrong with reporting from Iraq. It is clear that the description is based on what was seen from the Green Zone, probably from the reporters hotel window.

Then there are the "civilian" casualties. It identifies one of the dead as having a rifle lying next to him, which suggest he was an insurgent since none were wearing uniforms as required by the Geneva Conventions. The 37, including women and children, that were treated for injuries are also presumed by teh story to be civilian, but the reporter really has no way of knowing. Some could be enemy troops while others could have been human shields for the enemy. That is very probably a more likely conclusion than assuming they were all civilians.

There is another apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions by the enemy in Iraq suggested by this AP report.

Four of the five Americans killed when a U.S. security company's helicopter crashed in a dangerous Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad were shot execution style in the back the head, Iraqi and U.S. officials said Wednesday.

A senior Iraqi military official said a machine gunner downed the helicopter, but a U.S. military official in Washington said there were no indications that the aircraft, owned by Blackwater USA, had been shot out of the sky. Two Sunni insurgent groups, separately, claimed responsibility for the crash.

In Washington, a U.S. defense official said four of the five killed were shot in the back of the head but did not know whether they were still alive when they were shot....

It appears that two groups are competing to take credit for this war crime. The four killed execution style is four more than were killed at Abu Ghraid.