Not again!

[BOFH666]

I really hope the following story is wrong, that the helicopter in question was REALLY under attack, but sadly we've seen this before. If the story is accurate, chalk another one up to the trigger happy and another nail in the coffin for the middle east.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3730423.stm

A US military helicopter has opened fire on a wedding party in western Iraq killing over 40 people, reports say.

The US military could not confirm the reports, but said an investigation had been launched.

A police official in the desert town of Ramadi, near the Syrian border, told AP news agency between 42 and 45 people were killed by US fire.

The incident apparently happened after wedding guests started firing in the air in celebration.

The BBC's David Willis in Baghdad says the firing of guns is a tradition at Arab weddings and American troops have in the past mistaken celebratory gunfire for enemy attacks.

AP Television filmed relatives burying the alleged victims at Ramadi, a stronghold of insurgents against the coalition.

The dead are thought to include several women and children.


Note - as this is a breaking story the BBC might change the link. As I said I'm just hoping and praying this was a genuine attack and not what it seems to be at first glance.

[Ghost2004]

There has been crisis in the damn mid east since the time of Moses and I don;t think it's ever going to change.:(

All I can say is if that is what happened that is the lowest of the low.


"The Slaughter of the Innocents" seems to be a common theme in The US military, dosen;t it?

Ghostie

:sowrong:

[BOFH666]

Update from BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3730423.stm


The US military is investigating reports that a helicopter opened fire on a wedding party in western Iraq killing more than 40 people.

Early reports from Iraq suggested the attack happened after guests fired in the air as part of celebrations.

But US officials said their information was that coalition forces came under hostile fire about the same time in the remote area near the Syrian border.

They returned fire, killing a number of people, a defence official said.

Coalition forces also "recovered weapons and other evidence of anti-coalition activity", he said.

An Iraqi police official in the town of Ramadi told AP news agency between 42 and 45 people were killed by US fire.

Television footage

Arab TV channel al-Arabiya, quoting eyewitnesses in the border town of Qaim, said a frontier village was attacked before dawn.

The incident apparently happened after wedding guests in a village started firing in the air in celebration.

The BBC's David Willis in Baghdad says the firing of guns is a tradition at Arab weddings and American troops have in the past mistaken celebratory gunfire for enemy attacks.

The dead are thought to include several women and children.

One man told al-Arabiya: "The US planes dropped more than 100 bombs on us."

"They hit two homes where the wedding was being held and then they levelled the whole village.

"No bullets were fired by us, nothing was happening," he added.

AP Television filmed relatives burying the alleged victims at Ramadi, a stronghold of insurgents against the coalition.

The US, which is facing a Shia and Sunni Muslim insurgency in Iraq, says foreign fighters are entering the country from Syria.

Two months ago, six members of an Iraqi family were killed and four others wounded by US soldiers in a village north of Baghdad during a wedding party.