A frame grab from the leaked video of the 2007 airstrike, confirmed as authentic by a senior US military official
The US military is reviewing a video of a controversial helicopter attack on a group of people in Iraq in 2007, officials say.
The review comes after footage of the attack was published online by the website WikiLeaks, gaining 4.1 million YouTube viewings.
There are, however, no plans to reopen an investigation into the case, a US Central Command spokesman says.
An earlier probe into the case cleared the helicopter crew of any war crimes.
"Military attorneys are looking at it," a US official, who spoke under condition of anonymity, was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his driver and assistant Saeed Chmagh, 40, were both killed in the attack when their cameras were mistaken for weapons, US officials say.
"I would welcome a thorough new investigation. Reuters from the start has called for transparency and an objective inquiry so that all can learn lessons from this tragedy," Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said in a statement.
Relatives and colleagues of the Iraqi civilians killed in a 2007 American airstrike called yesterday for a further investigation to establish responsibility for the deaths after video footage of the attack emerged.
Among the 11 people killed in the shooting from a helicopter gunship in Baghdad were Saeed Chmagh and Namir Nour-Eldeen, Iraqi journalists with Reuters news agency, whose cameras and equipment were mistaken for weapons by soldiers.
Mr Chmagh’s brother, Safa, told The Times last night that no compensation or apology had ever been offered to the family by American forces. He said: “My mother and father are still alive and when they saw the video it was like it had happened yesterday.
“We saw the facts of the Americans in it. Since we found the truth now, we are going to sue the US soldiers that did it, we are going to sue them for murdering the two journalists.”
Khalid al-Anfari, a writer for Reuters who knew the two men, joined the calls for the case — which was investigated at brigade level in 2007 — to be reopened. “There should be further investigation, at least for the family to be satisfied that the blood of their sons has not gone without anyone feeling responsible,” he said.
He added that seeing the video had made him feel that the Iraqi civilians who died in American attacks “were innocent and this was just American mistakes”.
US military lawyers were reviewing the case last night. A military official said: “We’re looking at a reinvestigation because of a question of the rules of engagement. Were all the actions that are depicted on that video in parallel with the rules of engagement in effect at the time?”
Sarah Holewinski, the director of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, said that it was hard to tell how many Iraqi civilians had been killed in similar incidents. She said: “Footage like this is rarely released so it’s difficult to tell whether or not this was an unusual incident.”
Mark Taylor, an expert on international law and a director at the Fafo Institute for International Studies in Norway, said the evidence indicated that there was a “case to be made that a war crime may have been commited”. The Iraqi Journalists’ Union said that another journalist, Aseel al-Obeidi, 28, was killed by the US military in Baghdad on March 10. The US Army usually offers about $2,500 (£1,640) in compensation to bereaved families, Ms Holewinski said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment