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Iraqis dispute claim of 54 killed { December 2 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/02/MNGLP3E5LF1.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/02/MNGLP3E5LF1.DTL
Iraqis dispute claim of 54 killed
Townspeople say only 8 died, mostly noncombatants
Vivienne Walt, Chronicle Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 2, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
Samarra, Iraq -- U.S. commanders said Monday they had killed up to 54 insurgents in the fiercest battle since Saddam Hussein's government fell nearly eight months ago, but townspeople disputed that claim, saying only eight were killed in the battle Sunday, most of them noncombatants.
Military officials said the simultaneous attacks against two convoys in this city about 70 miles north of Baghdad were a highly synchronized operation involving heavy munitions and requiring precise knowledge of the American convoys' schedules.
"This was a coordinated effort,'' said Col. Frederick Rudesheim, commander of the 4th Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade, whose tanks drove into two ambushes as they escorted trucks carrying large amounts of the new Iraqi currency to branches of the Radifan Bank on opposite ends of town. He said 30 to 40 insurgents attacked each convoy. "There was a concerted effort by the enemy to deal a significant blow to coalition forces," Rudesheim added.
But with Samarra's hospital still filled with casualties, residents told a starkly different story. In a mix of rage and grief, residents lashed out at the brigade's soldiers, accusing them of firing randomly into crowded market areas in the center of the city, killing civilians, including two Iranians believed to be pilgrims visiting a Shiite mosque in town.
"All the people in town today are asking for revenge," said Majid Fadel al-Samarai, 50, an emergency-room worker at the Samarra General Hospital. "They want to kill the Americans like they killed our civilians. Give me a gun,
and I will also fight."
Rudesheim said Americans shot only at those who had fired on soldiers. He said the military calculated deaths "as best as we could," using reports from field commanders immediately after the firefights. Each death was cross- checked with a second soldier, said Capt. Andrew Deponai of the 3rd Brigade's Combat Team. Officials at the hospital said only eight dead had been brought in, along with 54 wounded, but conceded that some of the victims may not have been taken there.
Residents also charged that American soldiers showed little regard for the safety of civilians during the gunbattle.
"I saw a man running across the street to get his small son, who was stuck in the middle," said Abdul Satar, 47, who owns a bakery a block from one of the two banks to which the convoys had driven. "So the Americans shot the man," he said.
In a house on the outskirts of Samarra, Abir Mohammed Al-Khayat, 28, said a rocket hit the minibus in which she and several others had commuted from their jobs at a local pharmaceuticals factory. "There were about 20 of us, men and women," she said, cradling her arm, injured by shrapnel, in a sling.
At the hospital, several patients said they were injured when a shell, apparently fired from an attack helicopter, struck a mosque at about 5 p.m., when residents were converging for evening prayers.
In the corner bed of one ward lay Ali al-Tashi, a 9-year-old boy who had gone to the mosque Sunday night to pray with his father. Heavily bandaged, the boy sobbed in pain and confusion. His older brother, Grimian, 17, clutched his hand and tried to comfort him.
"He still does not know that our father has been killed," Grimian said. "All our brothers and sisters and our mother have gone up north, to Irbil, to bury him."
In the hospital's morgue, two people killed by bullets lay on metal shelves: a rail-thin man who seemed to be in his 60s, and a middle-aged woman dressed in a black religious robe. Hospital staffers said they found Iranian passports on the two bodies. Though Samarra is dominated by Sunni Muslims, many Iranian Shiite pilgrims visit the shrine of Imam Al-Hadi in the city.
On Monday, American forces leveled trees on the median of the highway in an attempt to clear hiding places from which insurgents could attack convoys. Rudesheim said two previous currency deliveries had been attacked with roadside bombs, so the soldiers were prepared for the ambush.
Soldiers who had fought off the insurgents said the fighters lay in wait as the money shipments -- guarded by about 100 soldiers in six tanks, four Bradley fighting vehicles, and several humvees -- entered the city and rolled through the narrow streets toward the banks.
The insurgents hid on rooftops and in alleyways, armed with rocket- propelled grenades, mortars and Kalashnikov rifles. As the convoys reached their destinations at the same moment, roadside bombs detonated, and the two battles erupted at opposite sides of the city. Rudesheim said that during the battle, which lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes, the insurgents used taxis, BMWs and pickup trucks to move their fighters around constantly.
"There were people on the roofs, sneaking around corners with RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), mortars, firing in all directions," said Sgt. 1st Class Alvin Ware, 34, of Harker Heights, Texas. "They were coming in from the alleyways, firing AK-47s. I haven't seen anything like this since I served in the Gulf War in 1991."
Deponai, of the brigade's Combat Team, described the fight as "touch-and- go for a while." In the end, however, he said, "We had overwhelming firepower on our tanks."
U.S. military officers said Sunday that all those killed were members of Fedayeen Saddam, the most ruthless fighting force Hussein possessed before the war. By Monday, however, they said that was no longer clear.
"We have not established a definitive link between these enemy and a specific organization," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad. He said some were wearing black uniforms and had covered their faces with checkered headscarves, as members of the Fedayeen often did.
Anti-American feeling runs strong in Samarra, a city of 200,000 in the heart of the Sunni triangle. Near the site of Sunday's battle, Salem al- Rathmani, wearing an olive-green Iraqi army uniform and officer's winter jacket, denounced the U.S. presence in terms that evoked prewar rhetoric.
"Why are people attacking the Americans? Because of the Palestinian issue,
the Americans' policy of supporting Israel, the sanctions," he said, referring to the U.N. economic sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War.
The crowd around al-Rathmani, who said he was a businessman in "construction and tourism,'' listened quietly until he mentioned dragnets conducted by U.S. soldiers in Samarra. The Americans took 80 prisoners last week, members of the crowd charged, and even captured local leaders of the Islamic Labor Party, which is represented on the Iraqi Governing Council. "Why are they capturing a lot of people without real charges?" they shouted.
Sunday's battle came at the end of the deadliest month since U.S. forces invaded Iraq on March 20. At least 104 soldiers were killed in November, including 79 Americans. Insurgents struck again Monday, killing a U.S. soldier in an attack on a convoy near Habbaniya, southwest of Samarra.
The violence last month also took a toll on other members of the U.S.-led forces, both military and civilian, and Iraqi allies. At least 16 Italians, seven Spaniards, two Japanese and two South Koreans were killed in the past few weeks, and about 32 Iraqi police, judges and local council members were killed.
Chronicle staff writer Robert Collier contributed to this report.
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