Turning Point Fallujah: How US Atrocities Sparked The Iraqi Resistance. But how did Fallujah become the heart of the Iraqi insurgency? For the answer we must turn back to the events of April 2003, when US troops entered the peaceful city of Fallujah and occupied the local secondary school.
Local people angry about the US occupation, and demanding the re-opening of the school, demonstrated outside the school on the evening of 28 April, nearly three weeks after the fall of the regime. US soldiers fired on the crowd, killing 13 civilians immediately.
This is the same number of civilians as was killed by British soldiers in Derry in Northern Ireland on Bloody Sunday in 1972. The Fallujah massacre was Iraq's Bloody Sunday, a similarly potent injustice sparking armed resistance.
The official US account was that 25 armed civilians, mixed in with the crowd and also positioned on nearby rooftops, fired on the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne, leading to a 'fire-fight'. (BBC News Online, 29 April 2003) Phil Reeves, a reporter for the Independent on Sunday, conducted a careful independent investigation and concluded that the official story was a 'highly implausible version of events'.
Witnesses interviewed by Mr Reeves 'stated that there was some shooting in the air in the general vicinity, but it was nowhere near the crowd.' US Lieutenant Colonel Eric Nantz admitted that the bloodshed occurred after 'celebratory firing', but he claimed hat the firing came from the crowd. (BBC News Online, 29 April 2003)
However, all the witnesses Phil Reeves could find agreed that there was no 'fire-fight' nor any shooting at the school, and that the crowd had no guns. The Independent journalist observed:
'The evidence at the scene overwhelmingly supports this. Al-Ka'at primary and secondary school is a yellow concrete building about the length and height of seven terraced houses located in a walled compound. The soldiers fired at people gathered below them. There are no bullet marks on the facade of the school or the perimeter wall in front of it. The top floors of the houses directly opposite, from where the troops say they were fired on, are also unmarked. Their upper windows are intact.' (Independent on Sunday, 4 May 2003, p. 17)
There were bullet holes in an upper window, 'but they were on another side of the school building.' (Independent, 30 April 2003, p. 2) The Telegraph's report of the bullet holes failed to mention this fact. (p. 10)
Dr Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali told reporters at Fallujah Hospital, 'Medical crews were shot by [US] soldiers when they tried to get to the injured people.' (Mirror, 30 April 2003, p. 11) (link)
This article provides some back history on Fallujah. We don't see this mentioned much, do we? [Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs]
Indeed not. I've pointed this out before, but I don't expect it to make a difference. It's disgusting that so much death and destruction has occurred because some macho idiot officer was willing to murder people rather than admit that he was in the wrong and take steps to peacefully resolve the dispute.
10:54:59 AM 
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