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thedrifter
04-09-06, 08:48 AM
13-year-old survivor contends Marines killed innocent family
By Nancy A. Youssef
Inquirer Foreign Staff

HADITHA, Iraq - In the middle of methodically recalling the day his brother's family was killed, Yaseen suddenly stopped speaking in a monotone with tears streaming. He looked up, paused and pleaded: "Please don't let me say anything that will get me killed by the Americans. My family can't handle any more."

The story of what happened to Yaseen and his brother Younes' family has redefined Haditha's relationship with the Marines who patrol it. On Nov. 19, a roadside bomb struck a humvee on Haditha's main road, killing one Marine and injuring two others.

The Marines say they took heavy gunfire afterward and thought it was coming from the area around Younes' house. They went to investigate, and 23 people were killed.

Eight were from Younes' family. The only survivor, Younes' 13-year-old daughter, Safa, said her family was not shooting at Marines or harboring extremists that morning. They were sleeping when the bomb exploded. And when the Marines entered their house, she said, they shot at everyone inside. Fearing reprisals, they asked that their family name not be published.

The Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began an investigation in February after a Time magazine reporter passed on accounts he had received about the incident. A second investigation was opened into how the Marines initially reported the killings - the Marines said that 15 people were killed by the roadside explosion and that eight insurgents were killed in subsequent combat.

On Friday, the Marines relieved of duty three leaders of the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, which had responsibility for Haditha when the shooting occurred. They are the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, and two of his company commanders, Capt. James S. Kimber and Capt. Lucas M. McConnell. McConnell was commanding Kilo Company of the Third Battalion, the unit that struck the roadside bomb on Nov. 19 and led the subsequent search of the area.

The Marines' announcement did not tie the disciplinary actions directly to Haditha, saying only that Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding general of the First Marine Division, had lost confidence in the officers' ability to command.

They were relieved because of "multiple incidents that occurred throughout their deployment," said Lt. Lawton King, a spokesman at the Marines' home base at Camp Pendleton, Calif., to which they recently returned. "This decision was made independent of the NCIS investigation."

Haditha, a town of about 100,000 people in Anbar province, is an insurgent bastion and has been the site of some of the deadliest attacks against U.S. forces. On Aug. 1, six Marine reservists were killed in an ambush; two days later, a roadside bomb killed 14 Marines traveling in an amphibious assault vehicle just outside the town, the deadliest single attack on U.S. forces in Iraq.

On Nov. 19, according to a military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, the Marines were hit four separate times by roadside bombs and were fired on multiple times by gunmen they couldn't see.

It was 7:15 a.m. when the blast from a roadside bomb killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas. The firefight started immediately, according to the Marines.

There is as yet no official public version of what took place next, and U.S. officials familiar with the investigation would discuss the incident only if their names were not used.

According to these officials, a car approached the convoy about the same time the shooting began. The Marines signaled it to stop, and it did. But it was too close to the convoy, and when four men jumped out of it, the Marines, suspecting the men had been involved in the attack, shot them dead.

Yaseen said he and his brother's family were asleep in their houses about 100 yards away when the explosion woke them. Minutes later, they heard the Marines blocking off the road.

Yaseen, citing Safa's account, said Younes started to prepare the family for the search they knew was coming, separating the men from the women and the children, as is the custom during searches.

Younes moved his five children and sister-in-law into the bedroom, Yaseen said Safa told him. There, his wife was lying in bed, recovering from an appendectomy. They waited.

The Marines moved into another house first, according to U.S. officials. In that house, the Marines saw a line of closed doors and thought an ambush was coming. They shot, and seven people inside were killed, including one child.

Yaseen said Safa told him that her father heard something so he went to the front of their house. Seconds later, Safa said, she heard several gunshots. She didn't know it at the time, but her father was dying. Four Marines then entered the bedroom, and Yaseen said Safa told him that one Marine started yelling at them in English, but that they didn't understand what he was saying.

The women and children started screaming in fear, and Safa says she then fainted.

When she regained consciousness, only her 3-year-old brother was still alive, but he was bleeding heavily. She comforted him in a room filled with dead family members until he died, too. And then she went to her Uncle Yaseen's house next door.

Neither Yaseen nor Safa has returned home.
Contact reporter Nancy Youssef at nyoussef@krwashington.com.

Ellie