IRAQ

Democracy Now: U.S. Assassinates Two Shiite Clerics Organizing Nonviolent Resistance

Hashim says fifteen American soldiers ordered everyone down on the ground and ran to the podium to arrest the speaker, Said Adnan Nonabi, head of Muqtada al-Sadr's office in Hillah. They placed a black hood over his head and then, Hashim says, the American soldiers turned their attention to the two sheiks in a nearby hallway.

HASHIM AL-SAFI: They shot them where they were standing, and you can see the blood on the doors. They shot them from just one or two meters away.

AARON GLANTZ: The bullets that killed the two sheiks were the only shots fired in the human rights office. The only bullet holes in the hall are amidst a blood-spattered wall where the two sheiks were shot. Fragments of the two sheiks’ brains can still be seen on the floor, corroborating claims they were shot in the head. Meantime the head of the local office of Muqtada al-Sadr, Adnan Nonabi, has disappeared into U.S. custody.