Gorilla’s Guides

In ”What will we talk about today you and I?” my colleague Mohammed Ibn Laith described the aftermath of the February bombing of Al Sadriya market from the standpoint of one of the rescuers. On April 19, 2007 Um Thalit highlighted a report of American soldiers opening fire yet again on the rescuers after yet another bombing of Al Sadriya. Today in my mail box I received a link to this report in the American newspaper “The New York TImes.” I have highlighted the key passages which you will find below the fold:

As he neared the Babasher police station, about 100 yards from the blast site, soldiers that Mr. Himet says were Americans opened fire. He was wounded and crashed the bus in front of the police station. Iraqi soldiers were afraid to rescue him, he says, for fear the nervous American soldiers would shoot them, too. Bleeding badly, he was eventually taken to the hospital with the other victims he had tried to save.

Car Bombs, and Pain, Define a War With No Place to Hide

BAGHDAD, April 19 — Rahid Sabah Abid, a 25-year-old shop owner, left work on Wednesday afternoon and began his homeward journey on a day that seemed then much like any other. He wended his way through the crowded streets of the Shorja market, then boarded one of the minibuses waiting in the Sadriya neighborhood to take him home to his wife and five daughters in nearby Sadr City.

His first hint of trouble was a car racing against traffic toward the line of buses. “There was no warning,” he recalled. “I saw the explosion in front of me and felt the pain in my legs. The bus was on fire and I jumped out, then began to crawl. There were five burning cars with people in them. I shouted for someone to help.”

He recalled the car bombing, one of five bombings that killed at least 171 Iraqis on Wednesday, from a bed in Ali Abi Talib Hospital where he is recovering with one leg broken, the other badly burned.

Around him, the well-worn beds held other Iraqis whose lives had been changed forever in a moment’s flash of explosives and steel.

Car bombs have become a near daily occurrence here and one of the defining features in this phase of the Iraq war. They claim the majority of civilian deaths and injuries, and they have become the most intractable challenge to the United States forces as they seek to turn Baghdad into a safe zone where normal life can be resumed.

But in the Ali Abi Talib Hospital, normal still seemed far away. Over several hours on Thursday, as victims told their stories, no doctors or nurses were seen in the wards. Patients said there were only a few doctors for the entire hospital.

Muhammad Ahmed Rahim lay bandaged and bleeding, his face and arms badly burned and shrapnel in his neck. Around 4 p.m. Wednesday, Mr. Rahim was driving his aunt Shukriya Ahmed Rahim and his cousin Adnan Ali through the Baghdad streets in his Opel Salon. As he approached Al Madofer Square, he saw a Toyota pickup truck shoot into the square and pull in front of a tanker truck carrying fuel.

“I saw a flash,” he said. “Then I jumped out of my car. I remember the doors were blown off. Shukriya and Adnan stayed in the car.” His family members say he has asked repeatedly for his cousin and aunt. They will wait until he is stronger to tell him his passengers were killed in the explosion.

In many countries, Rahim Kareem Himet would be lauded as a hero. In Iraq, he lies in a hospital bed with three bullet wounds. Mr. Himet was visiting a friend near Sadriya when the car bomb exploded. He ran to the scene with dozens of other passersby.

“I dragged the wounded away from the fire, I put them on handcarts and pushed them away from the scene,” he says, his account confirmed by another patient wounded in the attack. “I found a minibus nearby with no driver, we put 10 wounded in the back and I began to drive them to the hospital.”

As he neared the Babasher police station, about 100 yards from the blast site, soldiers that Mr. Himet says were Americans opened fire. He was wounded and crashed the bus in front of the police station. Iraqi soldiers were afraid to rescue him, he says, for fear the nervous American soldiers would shoot them, too. Bleeding badly, he was eventually taken to the hospital with the other victims he had tried to save.

 

The Adnan family has no details of precisely what happened to their three sons on Wednesday. What they do know is that two are dead, and the third, 17-year-old Muntada, is in a coma with shrapnel lodged in his skull. Hussein el-Nashmi, a cousin, returned to his house that afternoon to the sound of women wailing.

Passers-by had brought home the broken body of 13-year-old Mudrick, who was dead, as well as Muntada, who was still breathing. Mr. Nashmi rushed Muntada to the hospital, then began the search for the oldest brother, 19-year-old Mortada.

“We know he is dead,” Mr. Nashmi said. “We have searched every hospital in the city. We can’t figure out which body is his. They are all burned so badly.” Downstairs, a refrigerated trailer was parked in the hospital yard, its floor slick with blood, 18 blackened bodies sprawled about.

“I hope I die soon,” Mr. Nashmi said. “I don’t want to see more friends die, or see my father and brother die. It will be better if I die first.”

Then he set off to pick through the carbonized bodies one more time

Source: Car Bombs, and Pain, Define a War With No Place to Hide - New York Times

Murdering cowardly American scum I have no pity for any American in Irak or for whatever fate may befall them.

Have a nice surge.

Saba