A relative grieves for a man and his wife killed during a U.S.-Iraqi military operation...

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A relative grieves for a man and his wife killed during a U.S.-Iraqi military operation in the village of Hawija, 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Baghdad, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009. Local police and witnesses said a Saddam-era army officer and his wife were killed and their 7-year-old daughter wounded early Saturday when the troops dropped from the air and raided the house. The U.S. military confirms the incident, which is still under investigation. (AP Photo)

http://it.notizie.yahoo.com/foto/galleria/foto-guerra.html?imageUrl=/ap/20090124/r_p_ap_wl_iraq/pwl-iraq-raid-28544fd-bfa9b046bbbb&sp=-1

[Rydz777]

1. There are relatives grieving in Afghanistan too, but just

no cameras to capture their anguish.

[patrice]

2. I have saved this photo. It will run in the digital photo frame that sits on my desk at work.

Thanks (I guess).

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3. article

U.S. troops kill Iraqi couple, wound daughter

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead a couple and wounded their eight-year-old daughter during an early morning raid on their house in northern Iraq on Saturday, a senior Iraqi police officer said.

Major-General Turhan Abdul Rahman, deputy chief commander of police in Kirkuk province, said U.S. forces stormed the house of Dhiya Hussein, a former officer in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein, in Hawija, 210 km north of Baghdad.

A U.S. military spokesman confirmed that a man and a woman had been killed and a child wounded in the raid, but gave no further details.

The spokesman said the incident took place during a joint operation with Iraqi forces. The Iraqi police general said no Iraqi troops were present at the raid.


http://www.reuters.com/article/gc05/idUSTRE50N1O720090124

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4. In the angry aftermath,

40 cars carrying hundreds of people converged on the family’s funeral later in the day, said Fadhil Najm, a neighbor. He said the mourners shouted, “Death to America! Death to killers of women!” as they buried the bodies.

Gen. Jamal Tahir Bakir, head of the provincial police, said U.S. forces acted on their own in the raid. The U.S. military denied that. It confirmed the deaths of the couple and their daughter’s injury but said the raid was conducted in cooperation with Iraqi forces. Under a new agreement between the United States and Iraq, which went into effect Jan. 1, all operations must be coordinated with Iraqi authorities.

As is often the case in Iraq, versions of the story diverged markedly.

The U.S. military described Hussein as the suspected leader of an assassination cell belonging to the insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq, which U.S. officials say is led by foreigners. When they entered the couple’s bedroom, they saw his wife reach under a mattress. In Arabic, they told her to show her hands, “but she failed to comply,” the military said.

They killed her, and Hussein then charged the soldiers. He was killed, the military said, by “forces acting in self-defense.” The girl was wounded by a shot that exited the mother’s body and struck her in the leg, it said. She was treated for what the military described as a minor injury. A search then uncovered a “high-powered pistol” under the mattress.

Sabir Abdullah, a cousin and neighbor of Hussein’s who spoke to the family, said the soldiers arrived in eight vehicles, with air cover, and entered Hussein’s house as the couple and their children were sleeping. In the bedroom, they shot the woman, Fathiya Ali Ahmed, in her head, body, arm and leg, he said. The daughter, Ahlam, who usually slept in the bedroom with her parents, started to cry. In the firing, she was shot in the left thigh and right arm, he said. The father began shouting, “God is greatest,” and in the tumult, the soldiers shot him in the head, stomach, and both arms and legs, Abdullah said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/6228726.html

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5. .