IRAQ

Counterpunch: A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead by Robert Fisk

A Mystery the US is in No Hurry to Solve

A human brain lay beside the highway. It was scattered in the sand, blasted from its owner's head when the Americans ambushed their own Iraqi policemen.

A few inches away were a policeman's teeth, broken but clean dentures, the teeth of a young man. "I don't know if they are the teeth of my brother--and I don't even know if my brother is alive or dead," Ahmed Mohamed shouted at me. "The Americans took the dead and the wounded away--they won't tell us anything."

Since the Americans will not reveal the truth, let Ahmed Mohamed, whose 28-year-old brother, Walid, was one of the policemen who gave chase, tell his story.

"We have been told that the BMW opened fire o the mayor's office at 12.30am. The police chased them in two vehicles, a Nissan pick-up and a Honda car and they set off down the old Kandar roads toward Baghdad.

"But the Americans were there in the darkness, outside the Jordanian Hospital, to ambush cars on the road. They let the BMW through and then fired at the police cars."

One of the policemen who was wounded in the second vehicle said the Americans suddenly appeared on the darkened road. "When they shouted at us, we stopped immediately," he said. "We tried to tell them we were police. They just kept on shooting."

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