Air raids on Baghdad on July 12, 2007

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The air strikes on Baghdad on July 12, 2007 comprised a total of three attacks by two US Army attack helicopters of the type Hughes AH-64 on targets in the district of Al-Amin al-Thaniyah ( Arabic الأمين الثانية) in the district of Baghdād al-dschadīda (بغداد الجديدة, "New Baghdad") in eastern Baghdad . The publication of on-board videos of the helicopters by WikiLeaks in 2010 attracted worldwide attention.

During the first attack, the two Apaches fired at a group of nine to eleven men with their 30-mm on-board cannons , who were in the way of approaching American ground forces. Some of the men were armed with AK-47s and a bazooka; others were unarmed. Two Iraqi war correspondents working for Reuters , Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen, accompanied the group. Noor-Eldeen's camera was also mistaken for a weapon. Eight men, including Noor-Eldeen, were killed during this attack.

The second attack, in which the 30mm cannon was also used, was the injured Saeed Chmagh and two unarmed men who wanted to help Chmagh: Shortly before the ground forces arrived, they tried to pull him into their van . The three men were killed and two children sitting in the car were injured.

In the third attack, three Hellfire missiles were fired at a house from which the enemy gunfire that was the actual cause of these helicopter attacks was suspected.

background

According to the news channel CNN American soldiers were the 16th Infantry Regiment since the beginning of operation Ilaaj every morning with small arms and recoilless anti-tank hand weapons fired. When gunfire was heard in the area on July 12, but could not be located, the Army sent two Apache attack helicopters there. They left Camp Taji at 9:24 a.m. and arrived at 9:53 a.m., at which point the coalition forces were sporadically attacked by Iraqi insurgents .

Attacks

Armed people on the pickup of the helicopter
A recording with the two Reuters employees within a group

When they arrived at the scene, the two helicopter crews noticed a group of 15 to 20 men. At that time, the two Reuters employees Saeed Chmagh (also: Said Chmar ) and Namir Noor-Eldeen (also: Namir Nur-Eldin ) were at this location. A helicopter crew made sure to have recognized weapons in two people. She reported a group of five to six people with AK-47 assault rifles and asked for permission to attack. After approval was granted, the crew identified an item in one person as a recoilless anti-tank handgun (RPG) and reported this. The view of the group was briefly blocked from the circling helicopter by a building. When the view of the group was clear again, both helicopters opened fire from their 30 mm automatic cannons . Several men, including Noor-Eldeen, were killed and others, including Chmagh, were wounded.

A minibus passed shortly afterwards and the unarmed occupants tried to rescue the injured Saeed Chmagh. Even before the minibus had stopped at the scene, the helicopter crews reported that a minibus collecting the bodies was approaching. With the hint that it looked like that people could possibly recover corpses and weapons, the operations management was asked for renewed permission to fire. After several pressures to be allowed to shoot, the crews reported that the wounded man was being loaded onto the bus, whereupon the permit to fire was granted. In the subsequent attack on the van and the helpers on the road, Chmagh and the two unarmed helpers were killed. Two small children who were on the bus survived seriously injured.

After that, there is a period of 20 minutes of which there are no recordings. According to official reports, the helicopters were tracking a group of insurgents, some of whom went into a house. When the video starts again, two people can be made out, one of whom appears to be armed and goes into the building. The operations management was again asked for permission to fire. The building was first described by the helicopter crew as abandoned and then as under construction. After a crew reported that at least six people with weapons were in the house, it was fired at with three AGM-114 Hellfire missiles .

Estimates of the number of people killed in the attack range between 12 and 18.

enlightenment

The day after the attacks

Just one day after the death of the Reuters employees, the New York Times published an article in which interviewed eyewitnesses and representatives of the Iraqi police attributed the death of the two men and their companions to the shelling by American attack helicopters. The US military stated in the same article that American ground forces in the area had been attacked with bazookas and small arms and had called in helicopters for assistance. The two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed in the ensuing battle.

Reuters claims

Reuters then called on the US armed forces to investigate the violent deaths, specifically addressing the following points:

  • An explanation of why the two cameras were confiscated.
  • Access to footage from the cameras of the attack helicopter involved in the incident.
  • Access to radio communications between the helicopter crews and US ground forces.
  • Access to reports from the units involved in the incident, including a list of all weapons found at the scene.

These demands, which were made on the basis of the Freedom of Information Act , were rejected with reference to the safety of the soldiers.

Internal investigation by the military

The US armed forces had already carried out an internal investigation at this point, but the results were not published until 2010. Accordingly, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen had made no recognizable attempt to identify themselves as representatives of the press, due to the proximity to the group of armed insurgents in which they were moving and the misleading handling of the camera equipment on the crews of the attacking helicopter gunships enemy combatants cast. The April 6, 2010 report emphasized that details that are easily recognizable when viewed on large screens are not necessarily visible to the Apache pilots during a combat mission, as they are viewing the scene on a much smaller screen and at the same time a safe flight and enemy insurgents to watch out for.

WikiLeaks reveal

Original footage of the air attack from the target camera of the on-board cannon of the Apache attack helicopter
(cut - 13:29 min.)

(uncut videos: part 1 - part 2 )

On April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released the video recordings of the incident recorded on board the Apache helicopters at a press conference. Following the euphemistically used military term collateral damage (English: collateral damage ) was the title of this Collateral Murder selected.

The 39-minute video was recorded by the aiming camera of the on-board cannon. It shows several people who, according to the US soldiers, were carrying AK-47 assault rifles and a bazooka ( RPG ). Some of the suspected weapons were journalists' cameras. The on-board camera shows how fire is opened on the group. About twelve civilians, including two Reuters employees, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen , were killed.

Wikileaks employee Julian Assange said that he was not definitely sure whether people present actually carried weapons (which is nothing unusual in Iraq), but that they had not attacked the US troops. While z. B. Fox News agreed with the US military’s interpretation. B. the Guardian that no weapons, but the camera of the journalist was recognizable.

Collateral Murder was the first WikiLeaks publication in which not only was the original material shown without comment, but also an edited, shorter version was posted, which was described as a journalistic contribution by the then Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg . Additional material has been added including pictures of the injured children, the wrecked minibus and the relatives of the known victims. The rules of action applicable to soldiers at the time were also posted on the web along with the video. Wikileaks thus gave up its neutral position for the first time and openly positioned itself against the actions of the US government. In connection with other publications on the war in Afghanistan , Assange said: “The material highlights the everyday brutality and misery of the war. It will change public opinion and that of people with political and diplomatic influence ”.

Icelandic journalist and WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson traveled to Baghdad with cameraman Ingi Ragnar Ingason before the video was released and interviewed the two surviving children. In addition to Assange and himself, Birgitta Jónsdóttir , Rop Gonggrijp and Daniel Domscheit-Berg and others are named as employees in the credits of the video .

Reactions

The published video of the events in Baghdad received a lot of attention early on on blogs, YouTube and investigative journalists . The mass media later reported extensively on the video and the incident internationally. Although there have been attempts to portray the shortened version of the video as manipulative. B. reported in The Weekly Standard that the video was edited in a misleading manner - the publication was mostly rated as credible.

In particular, the comments of the pilots (who assumed that they were fighting insurgents) aroused outrage in public: their radio communications could be heard on the video and subsequently supplemented with subtitles. The pilot commented on the incident with “Look at these dead bastards!” While another radio participant congratulated him on the “good shots”.

The US military said the video was real but did not show the context of the attack; there were firefights nearby. The United States Central Command justified the operation by saying that, in its opinion, some people had carried weapons and the journalists were not recognizable as journalists from a distance.

Following a tip from Adrian Lamo , US soldier Chelsea Manning was arrested as a suspected informant in May 2010, charged in June 2013 at a military tribunal in Fort Meade and found guilty of treason on July 30, 2013, among other things. The 2011 German Whistleblower Prize also went to the unknown person who made the video available to the public.

In an interview with Democracy Now magazine, journalist Rick Rowley, who himself worked on the scene the day after the incident, described the allegations made against the journalists killed in the April 2010 report by the US military as "ridiculous". The report would have blamed the journalists on the grounds that they had not revealed themselves to the helicopters flying high above their heads as journalists, that they were in the vicinity of armed insurgents and that they had finally tried to secretly American Photographing troops. According to Rowley, there was no reason to mistake the people for armed insurgents. In 2007, Baghdad was at the height of the civil war, dozens of bodies were lying on the streets every day, the Iraqi security forces, the police and the army were replenished with sectarian militias, so that every neighborhood in Baghdad had its own protective forces . It was legal for every household in Iraq to have their own Kalashnikov ( AK-47 ), and so every household he visited had one. The presence of men with Kalashnikovs dangling from their shoulders among a crowd of civilians without any weapon was therefore entirely understandable.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Air raids on Baghdad on July 12, 2007  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike transcript  - transcript of radio traffic

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Military’s Killing of 2 Journalists in Iraq Detailed in New Book . In: The Washington Post , September 15, 2009. 
  2. ↑ Redacted internal US Army report: “INVESTIGATION INTO CIVILIAN CASUALTIES RESULTING FROM AN ENGAGEMENT ON JULY 12, 2007 IN THE NEW BAGHDAD DISTRICT OF BAGHDAD” (PDF; 6.8 MB). Accessed August 22, 2013.
  3. ↑ Video Appears to Show US Forces Firing on Unarmed Suspects in Baghdad . In: Fox News , April 5, 2010. 
  4. ↑ by Christopher Dickey: WikiLeaks Video: What the Iraq War Looks Like . Newsweek. April 7, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2011.
  5. ↑ Raffi Khatchadourian: The Use of Force In: The New Yorker . April 7, 2010.
  6. ↑ a b Tom Cohen: Leaked video reveals chaos of Baghdad attack. CNN , April 7, 2009, accessed August 19, 2010 .
  7. ↑ United States Central Command : Root> 5 USC 552 (a) (2) (D) Records> Current Folder: Death of Reuters Journalists. In: centcom.mil. May 4, 2009, accessed August 19, 2010 .
  8. ↑ a b en.wikisource.org
  9. ↑ Dietmar Ostermann : Video raises doubts about combat: Journalists victims of a US attack? Frankfurter Rundschau , April 5, 2010, archived from the original on April 8, 2010 ; Retrieved April 5, 2010 .
  10. ↑ Wikileaks transcript with explanations (English) of the radio traffic ( memento from January 26, 2013 on WebCite ), Wikileaks cover script with explanations (German translation) ( memento from January 26, 2013 on WebCite ), archived from the English and German original on 26 . January 2013.
  11. ↑ a b Raffi Khatchadourian: THE USE OF FORCE. The New Yorker , April 7, 2009, accessed August 19, 2010 .
  12. ↑ BBC : US intelligence analyst arrested over security leaks. June 7, 2009, accessed August 19, 2010 .
  13. ↑ Raffi Khatchadourian: NO SECRETS. The New Yorker , June 7, 2009, accessed August 19, 2010 .
  14. ↑ Alissa J. Rubin, Qais Mizher, Ahmad Fadam: 2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as US Forces Clash With Militias. The New York Times , July 13, 2007, accessed April 5, 2010 .
  15. ↑ Dean Yates : Reuters seeks US probe into killing of Iraqi staff. (No longer available online.) Reuters , July 17, 2007, archived from the original on April 9, 2010 ; Retrieved April 5, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blogs.reuters.com
  16. ↑ Investigation into civilian casualties resulting from an engagement on July 12, 2007 in the New Baghdad district of Baghdad, Iraq (PDF; 6.8 MB) The appendix of the report contains the last photos of Nur-Eldin's camera and the handwritten statements.
  17. ^ Elisabeth Bumiller : Video Shows US Killing of Reuters Employees. The New York Times , April 5, 2010, accessed January 3, 2011 .
  18. ↑ wikileaks: Video showing murder of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists will be released at 16:00 UTC latest. twitter , April 5, 2010, accessed April 5, 2010 .
  19. ↑ Collateral murder , with German subtitles .
  20. ↑ Chris McGreal: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians. The Guardian , April 5, 2010, accessed April 11, 2010 .
  21. ^ Spiegel online: Interview with Daniel Domscheit-Berg on April 16, 2010. Accessed on December 24, 2010 .
  22. ↑ Der Spiegel 30/2010, Interview with Assange: We have to stop them. Retrieved December 24, 2010 .
  23. ^ Rosenbach, Stark: Public enemy WikiLeaks. Pp. 121, 123.
  24. ↑ 20 minutes online on December 9, 2010: The new face of WikiLeaks. Retrieved January 2, 2011 .
  25. ↑ gulfnews.com on October 1, 2010: Exposing an outrageous act. Retrieved January 2, 2011 .
  26. ^ Gleen Greenwald: NY Times, Weekly Standard join in a falsehood. Salon.com , April 6, 2010; archived from the original on April 10, 2010 ; Retrieved April 11, 2010 .
  27. ↑ spiegel.de
  28. ↑ Press release from the US Department of Defense dated April 12, 2010.
  29. ↑ at the time still under the name Bradley Manning .
  30. ↑ Bradley Manning verdict: guilty of most charges but not 'aiding enemy' , The Guardian . Retrieved July 30, 2013.
  31. ^ Heise.de on June 6, 2011: Whistleblower Prize 2011 goes to nuclear researchers. Retrieved June 7, 2011 .
  32. ↑ EXCLUSIVE: One Day After 2007 Attack, Witnesses Describe US Killings of Iraqi Civilians ( memento January 26, 2013 on WebCite ), video and transcript (English), Democracy Now, April 8, 2010, interview by Juan Gonzalez, archived from the original on January 26, 2013.

Coordinates: 33 ° 19 ′  N , 44 ° 31 ′  E