From the latest IOF Newsletter

Iraq outrage over US killing video

Al-Jazeera reports (April 7^th): Families of Iraqi civilians, seen being shot and killed by US forces in a leaked video, are seeking justice for their deaths.

Earlier this week Wikileaks, a whistleblower website that publishes anonymously sourced documents, released a video showing the US military firing at a group of civilians in Baghdad three years ago. The shooting left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency.

Victims' relatives have told Al Jazeera they want the military personnel responsible for the deaths to be taken to court. Two young children whose father was killed in the attack could not understand why they were targeted.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/20104782857326667.html

IFJ demands investigation into killing of Reuters media pai

The Guardian reports (April 7^th): The International Federation of Journalists has called on President Barack Obama to open a fresh investigation into the actions of the US army, which has been implicated in killings of journalists in Iraq.

This follows the release of a shocking video film of a 2007 helicopter gunship attack on civilians, including two media staff.

"This is evidence of calculated, cold-blooded and horrifying violence," said Jim Boumelha, IFJ's president. "The United States cannot ignore this atrocity and the killings of unarmed civilians. We insist on a completely new review of these and all the killings of journalists and media staff in the Iraq conflict."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/apr/07/iraq-usa

Iraq war vet: “We were told to just shoot people”

Dahr Janail reports for Truth Out (April 7^th): Truthout has spoken with several soldiers who shared equally horrific stories of the slaughtering of innocent Iraqis by US occupation forces.

"I remember one woman walking by," said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. He told the audience at the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March 13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland, "She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries."

Hart Viges, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army who served one year in Iraq, told of taking orders over the radio. "One time they said to fire on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation.”

Vincent Emanuele, a Marine rifleman who spent a year in the al-Qaim area of Iraq near the Syrian border, told of emptying magazines of bullets into the city without identifying targets, running over corpses with Humvees and stopping to take "trophy" photos of bodies. "An act that took place quite often in Iraq was taking pot shots at cars that drove by," he said.

http://www.truthout.org/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us58378