Update
-
3 More Unarmed Wounded Prisoners was executed
The fact that the Marine lieutenant after hearing the shoots, asked
the question whether the Iraqis were armed - implied that such
professionalism have happen before
So much for US Marine professionalism
U.S. to Probe Shooting of Wounded Iraqi
8 minutes ago Middle East - AP
By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - A U.S. Marine shot and killed a wounded and apparently
unarmed Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in the former insurgent
stronghold of Fallujah, according to dramatic pool television
pictures broadcast Monday. A Marine spokesman in Washington said
the shooting was under investigation.
The shooting
Saturday was videotaped by pool correspondent Kevin Sites of NBC
television, who said three other previously wounded prisoners in
the mosque apparently also had been shot again by the Marines
inside the mosque.
The incident played out as the Marines 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment,
returned to the unidentified Fallujah mosque Saturday. Sites was
embedded with the unit.
Sites reported that a different Marine unit had come under fire
from the mosque on Friday. Those Marines stormed the building,
killing ten men and wounding five others, Sites said. The Marines
said the fighters in the mosque had been armed with
rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles.
The Marines had treated the wounded, he reported, left them behind
and continued on Friday with their drive to retake the city from
insurgents who have been battling U.S.-led occupation forces in
Iraq (news - web sites) with increasing ferocity and violence in
recent months.
On the video as the camera moved into the mosque during the
Saturday incident, a Marine can be heard shouting obscenities in
the background, yelling that one of the men was only pretending to
be dead.
The video then showed a Marine raising his rifle toward a prisoner
laying on the floor of the mosque but neither NBC nor CNN showed
the bullet hitting the man. At that moment the video was blacked
out but the report of the rifle could be heard.
The blacked out portion of the
video tape, provided later to Associated Press Television News and
other members of the network pool, showed the bullet striking the
man in the upper body, possibly the head. His blood splatters on
the wall behind him and his body goes limp.
Sites reported a Marine in the same unit had been killed just a day
earlier when he tended to the booby-trapped dead body of an
insurgent.
The events on the videotape began as some of the Marines from the
unit accompanied by Sites approached the mosque on Saturday, a day
after it was stormed by other Marines.
Gunfire can be heard from inside the mosque, and at its
entrance, Marines who were already in the building emerge. They are
asked by an approaching Marine lieutenant if there were insurgents
inside and if the Marines had shot any of them. A Marine can be
heard responding affirmatively. The lieutenant then asks if they
were armed and fellow Marine shrugs.
Sites' account said the wounded men, who he said were prisoners and
who were hurt in the previous day's attack, had been shot again by
the Marines on the Saturday visit.
The videotape showed two of the wounded men propped against the
wall and Sites said they were bleeding to death. According his
report, a third wounded man appeared already dead, while a fourth
was severely wounded but breathing. The fifth was covered by a
blanket but did not appear to have been shot again after the
Marines returned. It was the fourth man who was shown being
shot.
A spokesman at Marine Corps headquarters in the Pentagon (news -
web sites), Maj. Doug Powell, said the incident was "being
investigated." He had no further details, other than to confirm the
incident happened on Saturday and that the Marines involved were
part of the 1st Marine Division.
The CNN broadcast of the pictures used pixilation to cover parts of
the video that could lead to public identification of the Marines
involved.
NBC's Robert Padavick told members of the U.S. television pool that
the Pentagon had ordered NBC and other pool members to make sure
the Marines identity was hidden because "they (the military
authorities) are anticipating a criminal investigation as a result
of this incident and do not want to implicate anybody ahead of
that."
In New York, NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said the network did
not broadcast the prisoner being shot because of the "graphic
nature" of the video.
