Iraq war logs: Apache helicopters kill 14 civilians in hunt for insurgents

[The Straight Story]

Iraq war logs: Apache helicopters kill 14 civilians in hunt for insurgents

US Apache helicopters killed at least 14 unarmed civilians in a series of previously unreported "gun runs" in eastern Baghdad only four days after the notorious killing of two journalists and 10 other civilians that was captured on a leaked cockpit video released in April.

The footage obtained by the WikiLeaks website led to the arrest of Iraq-based US army analyst Bradley Manning, who is accused of being its source. Posted on YouTube, the 39-minute cockpit video shows three incidents in which people were targeted as they walked along Baghdad streets, sat in a van or went into a building, unaware that gunships were aiming to destroy them. Because the dead included two Iraqi journalists working for Reuters TV the US authorities mounted a rare investigation.

War logs examined by the Guardian reveal that a bigger incident with a greater number of casualties occurred in a neighbouring part of Baghdad four days later on 16 July 2007. This time the Apaches were aided by unmanned surveillance drones and two F-16 fighter-bombers as US ground troops stepped up operations in densely populated eastern Baghdad against militants loyal to the anti-occupation cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. When it was over a local Iraqi informer told a US army interpreter that 14 civilians were dead, according to a military intelligence report.

The bloody incident begins after two foot patrols from A Company of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment come under small arms fire. One patrol "clears" the nearby Islamic Bank and then comes under fire again from a building belonging to the electricity ministry. Ten minutes later the other patrol reports fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Two Apache helicopters are called in, known in US military jargon as Crazyhorse elements 20 and 21, and both "engage the AIF" (anti-Iraqi forces). (The helicopter involved in the shooting four days earlier was Crazyhorse 18.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/apache-helicopters-kill-iraqi-civilians