![]() Two major battles between a US-led coalition and Fallujah locals ensued. Not one member of our tribe joined the terrorist groups.”Ī year after the shooting and after so much more bloodshed, Fallujah had become a hotly contested battleground. When they came, everybody including myself left for places like Jordan or Erbil in the north. “Groups like Islamic State arrived later. “Saddam was gone and we all thought the war was over, so who were they protecting us from? “I don’t even know why they came here, although they said it was to protect us. “They should have realised it is a special place, with ancient customs that you cannot disrespect, that you cannot abuse. ![]() It was so crazy for the Americans not to study Fallujah and its local customs regarding respect before they came. ![]() “I believe those very bad two days lit the flames of what happened for all those years following. “Of course what happened in Fallujah spread like a big fire, it spread to Baghdad and beyond and soon there was fighting against American troops all over Iraq. “This was unacceptable and a lot of fighting happened after that because of the shootings. “When the people saw that the US soldiers were not respecting our customs, using binoculars to look at our houses, our women, without respecting our culture it made everybody angry. “There were many of Saddam Hussein’s army senior officers in Fallujah, so you know, there were many guns, but they were not being carried. It’s why Fallujah became so famous, sadly. “The violence that followed is to be expected. ![]() “The shooting at the school and what you saw the next day was shocking, truly shocking. He tells me: “When the Americans came we said ‘no guns’ to everybody and locals respected that as they did not want trouble. The city descended into anarchy and insurgents flooded the area as thousands of locals fled their homes, while al-Qaeda and other groups joined the mayhem. Months later, four men from the Blackwater private military company were slaughtered, dragged from their vehicles, chopped up and burned, their remains left dangling from a bridge. We were chased out of Fallujah, barely escaping with our lives for a second time that day.Įarlier, a woman had screamed an insult at us when we visited a local hospital and a mob tried to cut us off. We had spent four hours with these people and hadn’t seen a single gun, and not even a knife.Ī US officer claimed his troops thought someone was shooting at them, and that the Humvee patrol mistook the flip-flops for grenades. This mobile US patrol was heading from west to east through Fallujah.Īs the dead lay in the street and the wounded were ferried off to hospital in cars, local leaders begged the young men to remain calm. Throughout the day they buzzed Fallujah from a few hundred feet, watching over the crowds.Īpache helicopters have excellent vision and must have seen these protesters were unarmed but it is possible they were not in contact with the passing Humvee patrol. ![]() Troops on the rooftops of the base then fired into the crowd with assault rifles in 20 seconds of sickening violence, killing another two more boys and seriously wounding 18.Īs we drove into the city, two US Apache attack helicopters had flown over from Baghdad. We were the only newspaper team there when that second demonstration, again unarmed, marched on the US base.Īs the crowd of mostly young men hurled flip-flops at a passing US Humvee patrol, a young soldier opened fire on them with a. Fallujah will never forget our blood spilling on these streets.” One local said of the April 2003 killings: “This was a slaughter of innocents – we remember every detail of those incidents. Sheikh Ali Hammad Al- Mehamdi is famous and widely respected in Anbar Province and Baghdad as his clan is the biggest and most important in Fallujah. ![]()
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