US Troops Kill Two Iraqi Policemen
8-11-3
- (AFP) -- US soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday shot dead
an Iraqi policeman they mistook for an attacker, killed another as he
tried to surrender to them and beat a third, a survivor of the incident
said.
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- The three Iraqi officers were firing from their
unmarked car at a suspect vehicle they were chasing when the Americans
opened fire on them in a western suburb of the capital, Sergeant Hamza
Atiya Muhsen, who said he was driving the car, told AFP.
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- Lieutenant Colonel Muayad Farhan, deputy head of
Al-Yarmuk police station where the dead officers were based, confirmed
that two of his officers had been shot by coalition forces.
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- The US military said it was aware of an incident but
unable to provide information. But army spokesman Staff Sergeant JJ
Johnson said there had been a case of "blue on blue" on Saturday, a term
for an incident where friendly forces fire on one another.
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- As the Al-Yarmuk deputy police chief spoke, two US
military police officers came to offer their condolences to him. They
asked not to be named but said they believed the two officers had been
shot by US troops after being mistaken for attackers.
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- Sergeant Nahi said one of his colleagues was shot as
he sat in the back seat of their white Hyundai car, which is the same
make and colour as many other Iraqi police vehicles but did not have the
blue markings and police numbering.
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- The third officer, who was uniformed, was shot as he
got out from the front passenger seat and held his hands in the air,
holding his coalition-issued yellow police badge and shouting "police,
police", said Nahi.
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- "The second time he said it he was shot. He was hit in
the right eye. He was hit by a machine gun that was firing at us right
from the start of the incident," said Nahi, who said the incident took
place outside a cement factory on the Abu Gharib Road.
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- Nahi, who said he was in civilian clothes but wearing
the large police armband and wearing the yellow police badge around his
neck, said after the firing had stopped he got out of the car and held
his hands up.
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- "Three soldiers surrounded me. I got down on my knees,
hands in the air, holding my badge. One of them kicked me in the back
and I fell to the ground. Another one kicked me twice in the face. They
put their boots on my head and pressed it into the ground.
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- "I kept saying 'police, police'; I don't speak English
but it's the same word in Arabic," said Nahi, who said the beating
lasted several minutes.
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- Nahi showed AFP cuts to his nose and head, a black
eye, and took off his shirt to display bruises over much of his back and
on his chest.
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- A car the Al-Yarmuk deputy police chief said was the
one involved in the incident was in the yard of the police
station.
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- There were dark stains on the back seat and the
vehicle had six bullet holes on the passenger side, 10 bullet holes in
the front window, which had remained intact, one on the driver's side
and one in the roof.
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The
Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in
anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans
l'anarchie"
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