Home > Samarra, Iraq : "I saw dogs eating the body of a woman"

Samarra, Iraq : "I saw dogs eating the body of a woman"

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 7 October 2004
20 comments

Wars and conflicts International

Waving white flags, Iraqis have fled Samarra on river boats as US forces claimed victory over insurgents in an offensive aimed at taking control of rebel-held cities.

Iraq’s US-backed interim government is hoping American and Iraqi forces will crush a bloody insurgency and take back all of the country before the scheduled January elections.

But Sunday’s operation in Samarra, north of Baghdad, brought condemnation from residents about the cost in lives and suffering, and guerrillas in the fiercest rebel-held city of Fallujah are expected to put up a tougher fight.

The US strategy of "precision strikes" also came in for criticism from Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar, who described the air assaults as collective punishment.

In 36 hours of fighting in the city, the US military said it killed 125 guerrillas and captured 88. About 3 000 US troops and 2 000 Iraqi soldiers had stormed Samarra on Friday.

Aid organisations said they were concerned about a lack of water and electricity and the fate of hundreds of families forced to flee.

One man, who said he escaped the city yesterday, reported that civilians had been killed. He said he had seen dogs picking at corpses in the street.
"I swear I saw dogs eating the body of a woman," he said.

Residents said bodies were left in the streets, untended due to the fear of snipers.

Families tried to bury their dead on Sunday but the road to the cemetery was blocked off by US troops, witnesses said.

Meanwhile, near Baghdad, a hospital said it had received the bodies of a man and a woman, both believed to be Westerners, found by police on Saturday.

The man had been beheaded and the woman shot in the head. They carried no identification documents. - Reuters

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&click_id=2813&art_id=vn20041004024359961C360203&set_id=6

Forum posts

  • My son is currently in Iraq in the Army and is near Samarra. What i don’t understand is why the Iraqi’s can’t help themselves. Do they enjoy killing each other. Our troops are there to help them, but they must first help themselves. Yes there may have been bodies in the street, probably shot by their own people. Do Iraqi’s fear being ruled by Iraqi’s? Do they want Saddam back, who is the biggest Weapon of Mass Destruction. HELP YOURSELVES

    • Right now the Iraqis are being ruled by a puppet government installed by Bush and company, Allawi the Prime Minister was and is a CIA operative. Now if you think that wouldn’t piss you off if you were an Iraqi then you are stupid.

      Your son should desert and come home. If he is a Christian he should remember God’s commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill.....

    • I can not believe how brainwashed you americans are...
      Bush went out there for the oil, there are no weapons of mass destruction!!!
      it has been proved..
      Damn people you country it’s ruled no longer by a democracy...
      just read "what uncle sam really wants" from Noam Chumsky.

      You’ll realize how corrupt your goverment is and how rotten your system is.

    • My son is currently in Iraq and he fought in Samarra. He called Wednesday to say that he was OK. I pray each day for the safety of my son and for the people of Iraq. I am proud of my son and the sacrifices has made. My son is not fighting to control the country of Iraq or its oil. He wants to help the people of Iraq. It is a thankless job right now but I believe the people of Iraq will thank my son and others for what they have done to bring the end of Sadam and the thugs who ran Iraq. It is not pretty now but "God willing" it will be better when the people of Iraq see that their future is not with the evil that has been their past for the last thirty years.

    • The thugs that ran Iraq are now replaced by the thugs that control this government. If you are stupid then you don’t know that. Your son is a sucker and his little tiny pay check is a joke. Tell your son if he is a Christian that killing is against God’s laws and he will surely go to hell for his trouble.

    • Dear Mother’s soldier.
      Do not waste your time discussing with such fools full of hatred.

      The silent majority of iraqi is rather supportive of the coalition even if our biaised media and the "alternative medias" don’t want to see and even less report it.

      Just have a look at the iraqi weblogs to see what they really think of america and the so-called "resistance".

      a good example is:

      http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

      american soldier’s blogs also show another interesting point of view.

      I want to denounce here a bloodthirsty neo-nazi american soldier who has done so much against the poor iraqi children.

      http://chiefwiggles.com/

    • Pedal your propaganda somewhere else...

    • Well, I see that truth hurts you!

  • It was on the front page of many national newspapers just last week that Most Iraqi casualties were committed by the US troops..these military families should be ashamed of themselves first for sending their children to fight for a shameful war that has killed 37,000 Iraqi people in just one year destroyed their cultural sites, their very infrastructure which was already in bad shape due to the political games we played with our puppet Saddam. Secondly military families should start being honest, this woman’s plea that her son was there to do good is the propaganda line that allowed our government’s military industrial complex to invade and seize this countries land and resources. What American would like this if the cercamstances were reversed? Would her son then be a freedom fighter? Would she be able to pick up the pieces of her family and home and just go on merily helping herself to the torn bodies of her children and her life as tho it were just a mere bump in the road to democracy? Try to join reality, get your children out of there, they have no business there. Bush is constructing 14 bases there for permanent occupation, to protect his oil. And instead of using the resources here in this country to develope hydrogen and alternate energy sources we Americans are being played for a bunch of Patseys.....

    • How many people did Sadam kill in Iraq? It was ten times ten the 37,000 that you say were killed in the last year. Many have a desire to keep the old power structure. I can not understand how people could want that. I am proud of what my son has done in Iraq as an American soldier.

    • Saddam was America’s puppet.....now Allawi is America’s puppet....how can you be proud that your son kills for money?

    • It sad what happen in Iraq.People I know is in Iraq fighting in a war that they don’t believe in.Let all pray and hope that the madness in Iraq end now.I pray for Bush to stop this mess.Some people say that more Iraqi people died under American than under Saddam rule.

    • Is that what you think of the American Soldier who signs up to defend his country. I feel sorry for you and hope you are not American, you are truly showing how ignorant you really are.

    • Signs up to "defend" his country, I might remind you all that Iraq did not do anything to America or Americans. People who sign up to go kill innocent people in other countries are murdering bastards and there is no honor in that. And they are all going to go to hell.

    • You are truly ignorant.

    • I too am proud of what my son is doing as an AMERICAN SOLDIER in Iraq no matter what anybody says, they do not sign up to kill people, you people need to get educated. The media lies and you listen to it. Why not ask someone who has been in Iraq what is going on instead of those who have not been there and seen what is happening!

    • You’re right. medias are either lazy or biased. And I can see that it can litteraly brainwash people to make them think what is good and evil instead of trying to be objective.

      Some people in this forum are good examples. how fanatized they are.

      So they will no longer be interested in knowing the truth, but what they WANT to see and read because they think they are thinking good and right.

      This is truly pathetic.

      As you say, the best way is to ask directly to someone who lived/live in Iraq.
      That is why soldiers and iraqi blogs are very interesting sources of information/counter-disinformation, and much more complete than our medias.

    • You mean source of PROPAGANDA

    • American soldiers are over there killing Iraqi civilians. That is a fact lady. And unless your son is on KP all of the time he is probably out killing innocent Iraqi people no matter what he tells you....He should become a Christian, they do not believe in killing people for oil or for a corrupt government that is the property of the military industrial complex. Your son is making America the most hated nation in the world and the Iraqi people hate us the most right now. So if you think the murdering bastard is doing something for his country grow up and get a brain.

    • And just where is your brain? Who has you "brain washed". America is built on a democracy that affords us freedom and the freedom of speech It also allows to each have the freedom to make and choose our own beliefs. Why do you insist on insulting everyone that has one that isn’t in agreeance with yours? Are you inferior to our govt. and all the good we continue to do at the cost of our loved ones lives, and our own tax money? Do you think ANY American should lie down and just take whatever a crazed, insane, lunitic wants to embark on our own soil? Our choice is to keep it off our turf. Would you like to have the idiots where ever you, you uneducated, insulting, soulless, insane critic are??? Just pray and keep it to yourself!!!