Comparisons of casualties
-
U.S.A 9/11
2752 U.S. civilians killed
AFGHANISTAN
8587 Afghan troops killed & 25761 seriously injured
3485 civilians killed & 6273 seriously injured
342 U.S. troops killed & 1026 seriously injured
IRAQ
30000 Iraq troops killed & 90000 seriously injured
785957 civilians killed & 1414723 seriously injured
3615 U.S. troops killed & 50677 seriously injured
160 U.S. civilians killed & 288 seriously injured
Who are the terrorists again? -
U.S.A 9/11
2752 U.S. civilians killed
AFGHANISTAN
8587 Afghan troops killed & 25761 seriously injured
3485 civilians killed & 6273 seriously injured
342 U.S. troops killed & 1026 seriously injured
IRAQ
30000 Iraq troops killed & 90000 seriously injured
785957 civilians killed & 1414723 seriously injured
3615 U.S. troops killed & 50677 seriously injured
160 U.S. civilians killed & 288 seriously injured
Who are the terrorists again? -
Taliban Atrocities
From Yakaolang where many people were massacred by Taliban in Jan 2001
Taliban brutally killed many people because they belong to Hazara ethnic minority.
The decomposed body of a father with his baby on his chest, found in a mass-grave out of tens of such graves uncovered in Kabul. Fundamentalists whipped up ethnic hatreds and perpetrated gruesome mass killings since their very first days of coming to power in April 1992. No fundamentalist party is innocent of such heinous crimes -
August 13,2000: Taliban after inhuman torture, kill the war-prisoners and throw away their dead bodies in the streets of Heart city. Thousands of people many of them children watch these dead bodies. No one is allowed to bury them. -
These photos are caught from a video film that has been filmed by
RAWA on August 26, 2001 in Kabul using a hidden camera. It shows
two Taliban from department of Amro bil mahroof (Promotion of
Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Taliban religious police) beating
a woman in public because she has dared to remove her burqa in public.
Women are sub-humans under fundamentalists of all hues and colours. This family has no male bread winner; the Taliban will not allow her to work. This is the only way she can 'earn a living'.
A girl of 10 years old shows what is left
to her after her family members were killed during
fighting among fundamentalists in Kabul -
Eight US troops charged with murder of Iraqi man
For the second time in a week, murder charges are filed against US troops.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
The US Marine Corps has charged seven marines and a Navy medic with the murder of a disabled Iraqi man, Hashim Awad, in Hamandiya, a Sunni village about 50 miles west of Baghdad near the Abu Ghraib prison.
The BBC reports that the men have also been charged with kidnapping and conspiracy, according to a Marine spokesman at Camp Pendleton, California, where the men are being held.
The Hamandiya investigation has been examining claims a man was deliberately killed on 26 April in the town in central Iraq.
The accused are alleged to have taken the 52-year-old victim from his house, shot him and then left a rifle and shovel by his body to make it appear as if he were an insurgent planting a roadside bomb.
The spokesman said all men were presumed innocent, and it would be up to military officials to decide what punishment they would face if convicted in a court martial. The men could face the death penalty if they are found guilty.
In an interview with Knight Ridder published earlier this month, Mr. Awad's family and friends said he had told them that marines stationed in the area had asked him several times to be an informant and to find out who was planting explosives in the village. Each time, they say, he refused.
On the morning of April 3, Awad's family says marines arrived at the door and pulled him outside. Less than an hour later, gunshots were heard and when the family went outside next morning, they found a freshly dug hole about 500 yards from their home, splattered with blood and littered with plastic gloves. Earlier, the marines had taken Awad's body to the local police and said they had found him digging a hole for explosives, and killed him.
The Associated Press reports that four other men were also initially brought back to Pendleton as part of the investigation into the Hamandiya incident, but they have been returned to duty at the camp pending further investigation.
The Boston Globe reports that Wednesday's announcement was the second time this week that murder charges have been filed against US troops in Iraq.
On Monday, the Army brought charges of premeditated murder against three soldiers for allegedly killing three Iraqi civilians who had been rounded up during a sweep of a suspected insurgent hide-out on May 9 north of Baghdad. The defendants were also accused of threatening to kill a fellow soldier if he revealed details to investigators.
Separately yesterday, the military in Iraq announced that murder charges had been filed against a fourth Army soldier in connection to the May 9 killings. The Army charged Specialist Juston R. Graber, 20, of the 101st Airborne Division, with premeditated murder and several lesser charges.
The Los Angeles Times reports that since the war in Iraq started in March of 2003, 30 US troops have been charged with "wrongfully killing Iraqis" with at least nine being convicted. The Hamandiya shooting is the first time charges have been filed against marines in Iraq. Officials also say that more marines "have apparently been charged in this case than in any previous wartime killing in the service's history."
The charges now go to the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury or preliminary hearing. Based on what happens at the so-called Article 32 hearing, [Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commanding general of US Marine Corps Forces Central Command], or his successor, will decide whether the case should go to a court-martial. Defense attorneys plan to challenge the tactics used by Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators, said Maj. Haytham Faraj, who represents Thomas. Some of the defendants were threatened that they might face the death penalty at trial unless they talked to investigators, defense attorneys said.
"Our position is that there was a lot of information that was coerced," said Faraj, who added that his client, who was on his third tour in Iraq, was "an outstanding Marine, doing his job, leading his men."
Defense attorneys will also argue that Awad's family members "concocted the story" in an attempt to get more money from US authorities for his death.
The North County Times, which serves the area in California near Camp Pendleton, reported Wednesday that money and messages of support for the eight US troops have been coming from around the nation. But some long-established support groups are staying away from the case because it is "so politically charged."
The Globe and Mail of Toronto reports that the two incidents mentioned above, and a third one in Haditha where charges may also be filed soon against US troops in the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians, come at a "tumultuous moment" for the new government in Iraq and the US, and could undermine gains in other areas.
This month's killing of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been hailed by some as a turning point in defeating the insurgency. But the crucial battle for Iraqi "hearts and minds," by both the new government and the 130,000-plus U.S. troops in the country, could be severely set back by three sets of courts-martial involving elite units accused of murdering civilians. The "few bad apples" assertion applied to the handful of reservists who abused Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison was unpersuasive to many in the Arab world. Premeditated murder by front-line troops or the killing of battlefield detainees will be regarded as war crimes. -
Iraq insurgents committing war crimes, rights group says
Posted Mon Oct 3, 2005 12:09pm AEST
Human Rights Watch says Iraqi insurgents are committing war crimes by deliberately targeting and killing civilians.
The group has called on Islamic religious and political leaders to condemn the attacks.
"There are no justifications for targeting civilians, in Iraq or anywhere else," Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division for Human Rights Watch, said.
"Armed groups as well as governments must respect the laws of war," Ms Whitson said.
In a 140-page report, the New York-based group documents how civilians have been terrorised and systematically killed in assassinations and bombings by armed insurgents.
While some insurgents and their supporters in the Arab world have sought to justify the attacks, the report seeks to debunk their arguments.
"The deliberate targeting of civilians during an armed conflict constitutes a war crime," the group said.
The report describes the assassinations of government officials, politicians, judges, journalists, humanitarian aid workers, doctors, professors and those deemed to be collaborating with the foreign forces in Iraq, including translators, cleaners and others who perform civilian jobs for the US-led force.
"Political and religious leaders in Iraq and abroad who support the insurgency should also condemn unlawful attacks," the report, entitled "A Face, A Name: Civilian Victims of Insurgent Groups in Iraq", said.
"People we have spoken with in the Middle East are increasingly repulsed by the behaviour of insurgent groups in Iraq, even if they support a withdrawal of US troops," Ms Whitson said.
"It is time for political and religious leaders who support the insurgency to denounce the atrocities in public."
Human Rights Watch, which monitors civil liberties around the world, has previously criticised the United States over its occupation of Iraq, accusing the military and Iraqi government forces of using excessive force and torturing detainees.
The report states that the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent occupation resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths and "sparked the emergence of these insurgent groups".
-AFP