Here are more reports on Iraq not highlighted in our corporate press. Please spread them around. Jamie
-----

ZNet | Iraq
Wedding Party Massacre in Iraq
by Rory McCarthy; UK Guardian; May 21, 2004

Mahdi Nawaf shows photographs of his family members - father, wife and six children - killed in a US attack on what is claimed was a sleeping village Photograph: Anna Niedringhaus/AP
The wedding feast was finished and the women had just led the young bride and groom away to their marriage tent for the night when Haleema Shihab heard the first sounds of the fighter jets screeching through the sky above.
It was 10.30pm in the remote village of Mukaradeeb by the Syrian border and the guests hurried back to their homes as the party ended. As sister-in-law of the groom, Mrs Shihab, 30, was to sleep with her husband and children in the house of the wedding party, the Rakat family villa. She was one of the few in the house who survived the night.
"The bombing started at 3am," she said yesterday from her bed in the emergency ward at Ramadi general hospital, 60 miles west of Baghdad. "We went out of the house and the American soldiers started to shoot us. They were shooting low on the ground and targeting us one by one," she said. She ran with her youngest child in her arms and her two young boys, Ali and Hamza, close behind. As she crossed the fields a shell exploded close to her, fracturing her legs and knocking her to the ground.
She lay there and a second round hit her on the right arm. By then her two boys lay dead. "I left them because they were dead," she said. One, she saw, had been decapitated by a shell.
"I fell into the mud and an American soldier came and kicked me. I pretended to be dead so he wouldn't kill me. My youngest child was alive next to me."
Mrs Shibab's description, backed by other witnesses, of an attack on a sleeping village is at odds with the American claim that they came under fire while targeting a suspected foreign fighter safe house.
She described how in the hours before dawn she watched as American troops destroyed the Rakat villa and the house next door, reducing the buildings to rubble.
Another relative carried Mrs Shihab and her surviving child to hospital. There she was told her husband Mohammed, the eldest of the Rakat sons, had also died.
As Mrs Shihab spoke she gestured with hands still daubed red-brown with the henna the women had used to decorate themselves for the wedding. Alongside her in the ward yesterday were three badly injured girls from the Rakat family: Khalood Mohammed, aged just a year and struggling for breath, Moaza Rakat, 12, and Iqbal Rakat, 15, whose right foot doctors had already amputated.
By the time the sun rose on Wednesday over the Rakat family house, the raid had claimed 42 lives, according to Hamdi Noor al-Alusi, manager of the al-Qaim general hospital, the nearest to the village.
Among the dead were 27 members of the extended Rakat family, their wedding guests and even the band of musicians hired to play at the ceremony, among them Hussein al-Ali from Ramadi, one of the most popular singers in western Iraq.
Dr Alusi said 11 of the dead were women and 14 were children. "I want to know why the Americans targeted this small village," he said by telephone. "These people are my patients. I know each one of them. What has caused this disaster?"
Despite the compelling testimony of Mrs Shihab, Dr Alusi and other wedding guests, the US military, faced with appar ent evidence of yet another scandal in Iraq, offered an inexplicably different account of the operation.
The military admitted there had been a raid on the village at 3am on Wednesday but said it had targeted a "suspected foreign fighter safe house".
"During the operation, coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided," it said in a statement. Soldiers at the scene then recovered weapons, Iraqi dinar and Syrian pounds (worth approximately £800), foreign passports and a "Satcom radio", presumably a satellite telephone.
"We took ground fire and we returned fire," said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military in Iraq. "We estimate that around 40 were killed. But we operated within our rules of engagement."
Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, was scathing of those who suggested a wedding party had been hit. "How many people go to the middle of the desert . . . to hold a wedding 80 miles (130km) from the nearest civilisation? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive."
When reporters asked him about footage on Arabic television of a child's body being lowered into a grave, he replied: "I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologise for the conduct of my men."
The celebration at Mukaradeeb was to be one of the biggest events of the year for a small village of just 25 houses. Haji Rakat, the father, had finally arranged a long-negotiated tribal union that would bring together two halves of one large extended family, the Rakats and the Sabahs.
Haji Rakat's second son, Ashad, would marry Rutba, a cousin from the Sabahs. In a second ceremony one of Ashad's female cousins, Sharifa, would marry a young Sabah boy, Munawar.
A large canvas awning had been set up in the garden of the Rakat villa to host the party. A band of musicians was called in, led by Hamid Abdullah, who runs the Music of Arts recording studio in Ramadi, the nearest major town.
He brought his friend Hussein al-Ali, a popular Iraqi singer who performs on Ramadi's own television channel. A handful of other musicians including the singer's brother Mohaned, played the drums and the keyboards.
The ceremonies began on Tuesday morning and stretched through until the late evening. "We were happy because of the wedding. People were dancing and making speeches," said Ma'athi Nawaf, 55, one of the neighbours.
Late in the evening the guests heard the sound of jets overhead. Then in the distance they saw the headlights of what appeared to be a military convoy heading their way across the desert.
The party ended at around 10.30pm and the neighbours left for their homes. At 3am the bombing began. "The first thing they bombed was the tent for the ceremony," said Mr Nawaf. "We saw the family running out of the house. The bombs were falling, destroying the whole area."
Armoured military vehicles then drove into the village, firing machine guns and supported by attack helicopters. "They started to shoot at the house and the people outside the house," he said.
Before dawn two large Chinook helicopters descended and offloaded dozens of troops. They appeared to set explosives in the Rakat house and the building next door and minutes later, just after the Chinooks left again, they exploded into rubble.
"I saw something that no body ever saw in this world," said Mr Nawaf. "There were children's bodies cut into pieces, women cut into pieces, men cut into pieces."
Among the dead was his daughter Fatima Ma'athi, 25, and her two young boys, Raad, four, and Raed, six. "I found Raad dead in her arms. The other boy was lying beside her. I found only his head," he said. His sister Simoya, the wife of Haji Rakat, was also killed with her two daughters. "The Americans call these people foreign fighters. It is a lie. I just want one piece of evidence of what they are saying."
Remarkably among the sur vivors were the two married couples, who had been staying in tents away from the main house, and Haji Rakat himself, an elderly man who had gone to bed early in a nearby house.
From the mosques of Ramadi volunteers had been called to dig at the graveyard of the tribe, on the southern outskirts of the city.
There lay 27 graves: mounds of dirt each marked with a single square of crudely cut marble, a name scribbled in black paint. Some gave more than one name, and one, belonging to a woman Hamda Suleman, the briefest of explanations: "The American bombing."

-----

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, Free Arab Voice

Thursday, 20 May 2004.

Iraqi Resistance in al-Fallujah prepares to strike US forces if they fail to remove their checkpoints around the city.

Earlier in the week, the Iraqi Resistance in the city of al-Fallujah gave US aggressor forces a grace period of three days, ending on Friday, 21 May, during which time they were to removed all their checkpoints and roadblocks around the city. Resistance fighters had noticed the Americans setting up checkpoints to the north, east, and west of the city and therefore sent word to the American invaders telling them that they needed to remove such roadblocks before the end of Friday congregational prayers at midday on 21 May.

To demonstrate that the Resistance threats are in earnest, the Resistance fighters destroyed an American tank, killing all the aggressor troops who were aboard it west of al-Fallujah on Wednesday. This attack compelled the US invaders to remove their troops from some of the checkpoints and to take down the earthen embankments they had set up at those locations.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Fallujah reported that it appears that the Resistance is prepared to carry out their threats. Late on Thursday there were unusual movements inside al-Fallujah, he reports, as Iraqi Resistance fighters from the north west to the north east of the city began to mass.

Iraqi Resistance destroys three Humvees near al-Karmah on Thursday, inflicting casualties.

Iraqi Resistance forces destroyed three US Humvees with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) when they attacked an American aggressor patrol as it passed through the area of al-Karmah. The Resistance fighters rushed at the US patrol, scoring direct hits on their vehicles with the RPGs. The American troops in the vehicles were also killed or wounded, but no detailed information on losses was provided by the correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam who reported the attack.

One US soldier killed, three wounded in Resistance grenade attack in Baghdad.

US aggressor sources announced on Thursday that one US invader soldier was killed and three others wounded when Iraqi Resistance forces attacked them with handgrenades in downtown Baghdad. The American Associated Press (AP) reported that the attack occurred in the early hours of Thursday morning. The American occupation authorities provided no further details of the Resistance attack.

Nighttime blasts hit US occupation headquarters in al-Anbar Province.

Five explosions shook the area around the US occupation headquarters in al-Qasr al-Janubi in al-Anbar Province west of Baghdad during the night of Wednesday to Thursday. In response US aggressor troops opened fire with machine guns at nearby houses, inflicting damage. According to the Egyptian Middle East News Agency there were no immediate reports of casualties in the incidents.

Fighting resumes between Jaysh al-Mahdi and US aggressors in an-Najaf.

Late on Thursday battle resumed between the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia loyal to Shi‘i religious leader Muqtada as-Sadr and US aggrssor forces in an-Najaf according to a report carried by Agence France Presse (AFP). An AFP correspondent reported that the fighting is concentrated in the area around the northern entrance to the city. Mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades as well as automatic weapons fire could clearly be heard in that part of the city on Thursday night.

Leaders of the Shi‘i tribes held a meeting in an-Najaf with representatives of Muqtada as-Sadr as part of a renewed effort to end the fighting between the Jaysh al-Mahdi and the US aggressors. Since that meeting, fighting has resumed with renewed fury.

Spanish aggressor troops come under Resistance attack.

The Spanish Foreign Ministry has reported that a group of Spanish aggressor troops on Thursday was attacked by Iraqi Resistance fighters. Reuters reported the attack as well, but no further details were immediately available.

Resistance blasts Bulgarian aggressor camp with mortars.

A spokesman for the Bulgarian Defense Ministry reported that two mortar shells slammed into a Bulgarian aggressor military camp in the city of Karbala’ early on Thursday morning. The BBC reported from Bulgaria that the official spokesman claimed that barrage damaged a military vehicle, but caused no casualties. Occupation troops in Karbala’ regularly come under mortar attack by the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia, loyal to Shi‘i religious leader Muqtada as-Sadr.

US aggressor forces arrest al-‘Arabiyah cameraman in Baghdad.

Al-‘Arabiyah satellite TV, which is based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, reported that US occupation forces on Thursday arrested one of their cameramen in Baghdad. Cameraman Husayn al-Karim was arrested as he was filming in al-Bay‘ah District in the Iraqi capital. The American Associated Press (AP) reported that US aggressor forces had closed off the area in which al-Karim was filming, after the Americans received reports of a car on fire there. The US occupation forces have issued no information on the arrest as of the time it was reported.

The arrest comes one day after al-‘Arabiyah broadcast a filmed report on the US helicopter massacre in the village of Makr ad-Dib near al-Qa’im in the western part of Iraq where some 45 Iraqi civilians celebrating a wedding were killed by the Americans.

Sources:
 http://www.islammemo.cc/news/one_news.asp?IDNews=33178
 http://www.islammemo.cc/news/one_news.asp?IDNews=33177
 http://www.islammemo.cc/news/one_news.asp?IDNews=33176
 http://www.islammemo.cc/news/one_news.asp?IDnews=33149
 http://www.islammemo.cc/news/one_news.asp?IDnews=33147
 http://www.islammemo.cc/news/one_news.asp?IDnews=33127
 http://www.islammemo.cc/news/one_news.asp?IDnews=33121
 http://www.islammemo.cc/news/one_news.asp?IDnews=33112


Friday, 21 May 2004.

US sets up new checkpoint on main road leading to al-Fallujah, in violation of cease fire agreement concluded with local Resistance.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Fallujah reported late on Friday that US aggressor forces were re-establishing their checkpoints on the al-Fallujah bridge east of the city, the point considered to be the main entrance to al-Fallujah. People coming to the city must wait for four hours before US aggressor troops allow them to pass into the city.

This measure is regarded as a new provocation by the US invaders who clearly are trying to damage the morale of the Resistance fighters in the city, Mafkarat al-Islam’s correspondent writes.

Amid these developments, al-Fallujah residents ask whatever happened to the so-called Islamic Party of Iraq, a party that collaborates with the US invaders but which helped to broker the cease fire that allowed for the lifting of the US siege on the city. The resurrection of US checkpoints leading into the city are in clear violation of the cease fire agreement. The latest US measure has moved al-Fallujah residents to wonder if the cease fire was in fact nothing more than a means to allow the Americans to extract themselves from a no-win situation as they besieged a defiant city and took heavy losses in the process, and indeed to rescue themselves from an eventual defeat.

Al-Fallujah Resistance fighters destroy US tank as Resistance launches attacks after their deadline for the US to remove checkpoints passes.

Iraqi Resistance fighters in al-Fallujah on Friday destroyed an American tank by firing three rocket-propelled grenades at it after sunset. The Resistance had observed the tank north of al-Fallujah in the area of the railroad tracks. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Fallujah reported that this attack was the first Resistance attack by the al-Fallujah Resistance fighters after the end of the grace period they had given the US aggressor forces during which time they were supposed to take down their barriers and checkpoints around the city. That grace period ended with the Friday congregational prayers at midday. The Resistance had threatened that if the Americans did not remove their barricades by that time, they (the Resistance) would begin attacking the invaders.

US starts trying to cut off al-Karmah area near al-Fallujah.

US aggressor forces began on Friday evening to encircle and besiege the area of al-Karmah, near al-Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Their blockade cuts the road that follows a branch of the Tigris, the al-Fallujah road, and the ash-Shu‘lah road. According to the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in al-Fallujah, these developments follow a successful Resistance operation against the US aggressors in the al-Fallujah area in which a tank was destroyed by three rocket-propelled grenades.

Al-Karmah? is a rural area which is therefore difficult to besiege effectively. Houses are set far apart and it is considered a tribal area.

On Thursday, al-Karmah was the scene of an engagement in which the Resistance destroyed three American tanks with rocket-propelled grenades. That attack occurred when a US patrol passed through the al-Karmah area.

Two powerful blasts shake Baghdad Friday afternoon.

Eyewitnesses reported that two large explosions were heard in downtown Baghdad on Friday afternoon. According to the American Associated Press (AP), Iraqis saw clouds of thick black smoke densely covering the area where the blast occurred - often an indication that some target, probably a vehicle, had been destroyed. There was no other information immediately available on the explosions.

Jaysh al-Mahdi engaged in fierce battle against US offensive against Karbala’, an-Najaf, al-Kufah.

The Jaysh al-Mahdi militia, loyal to Shi‘i religious leader Muqtada as-Sadr, battled a violent US offensive on the city of Karbala’ on Friday. The US aggressors claim that they killed 18 Jaysh al-Mahdi militiamen as their AC-130 helicopter gun ships and tanks pounded militia positions near the tombs of the Imams al-Husayn and al-‘Abbas.

US aggressor forces were driven out of al-Mukhayyam Mosque in the city, a place they occupied last week but where they were subjected to frequent Resistance attacks. The humiliated agressors tried to save face by saying that their patrols in the city “would continue.”

The American retreat from the mosque took place hours after a major US military operation into Karbala’ was reportedly postponed. The operation was postponed to allow discussion between Iraqi puppet leaders and the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia on a possible negotiated end to the fighting, a senior US military official told the American Associated Press (AP) on condition of anonymity.

Fighting between American forces and the Jaysh al-Mahdi was also heavy in an-Najaf and neighboring al-Kufah, south of Baghdad. Explosions rocked the center of an-Najaf, near local government buildings, and Friday congregatioal prayers were canceled because of the violence. A huge fire raged in a vegetable market.

An American spokesman for the 1st Armored Division claimed that the fighting in Karbala’ started after Jaysh al-Mahdi militiamen fired several rocket-propelled grenades at US aggressor tanks that had penetrated to the outskirts of the so-called "Old City," a maze of alleyways and cluttered. The US invader tanks returned fire, and more than two hours of heavy fighting followed. Smoke billowed from burning buildings. Explosions lit up the night sky and reverberated throughout the city. Electric lights flickered on and off. By 3:00am Friday morning, the fighting had stopped.

-----

May 22, 2004

Two pictures put up in an internet café in Baghdad make for a vivid statement of how Iraqis have come to see U.S. occupiers.

One shows a woman in the United States hugging her dog. A second shows a hooded Iraqi prisoner sitting on the ground, hands tied behind his back. A soldier holds a gun to his head.

The picture seems to get worse in Iraq every day, and it also gets worse for the United States in Iraq.

Iraqis are incensed already over widespread damage caused by U.S. military operations to their mosques both in Fallujah and southern Iraq, and by the photographs documenting torture in Abu Ghraib prison.

Now the killing of 40 wedding guests, mostly women and children, in a military helicopter attack, have enraged people further.

"The Americans must have no religion," Hashmiya Al-Abdulla?, a housewife in Baghdad said of the slaughter at the wedding. "Anyone with religion cannot torture people, destroy mosques and homes, or kill people at a wedding ceremony. They worship force, not God."

In Haditha, a small city northeast of Baghdad on the banks of the Euphrates River, shop-owner Ali Zamhuir speaks of the consequences for the United States. "U.S. companies will never be able to work in Iraq after what their military has done here. The mujahideen will never allow it."

U.S. actions seem to have improved the image of Saddam. "Even Saddam wasn't as cruel as the Americans," said Tassin Awad in Haditha. "Even he didn't torture like the Americans. Everyone in Haditha believes Saddam was a criminal, but would prefer him over the Americans."

Iraqis are less than optimistic about the "transfer of sovereignty" June 30.

"The Americans have fulfilled none of their promises," said Sa'adoun Aziz, an unemployed construction worker. "Where is the rebuilding?"

Many people want Saddam back because the present situation is terrible, he said. "After June 30 the oil, finance and trade ministries will remain in the hands of the Americans, and we will have no army of our own."

Aziz pointed across the Euphrates to a damaged electricity tower. "This is freedom."

At his home in Haditha, Hammed Abdulla believes the attack on the wedding party was intentional. "The Americans are provoking people on purpose to get a reaction," he said. "Iraq is sitting on top of a volcano."

He added angrily, "I would like to see Mr. Bush and tell him that Saddam is better than he is."

Schoolteacher Mohammed al-Hakim said "the Americans are speaking of freedom and democracy while they are the cruelest, most brutal army ever."

Sitting nearby, an unemployed school manager too says June 30 will bring no change. "They will not pull out after June 30," he said. "But the Americans cannot control Iraq. America promises so many things, but they have fulfilled none of them."

Several men and women around him nodded in agreement as he spoke. "They promised prosperity, yet they have destroyed everything. They shot up the wedding party because they are the terrorists."

One man added, "They said they would bring real freedom, but we see our people tortured in prison, looted, and their homes raided."

Daily attacks on U.S. forces (799 confirmed U.S. troops killed thus far) in Iraq remain high, and many Iraqis believe this number will only increase as June 30 approaches.

The highway through the desert to Haditha bears several scars from improvised explosive devices that have detonated under U.S. military vehicles patrolling the area. They are only one sign of Iraqi anger with U.S. forces.

 http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jamail.php?articleid=2635