Marines accused of slaying children
November 24, 2004 Edition 1
Baghdad: Disturbing reports of alleged widespread abuse by US forces in Fallujah, including the killing of unarmed civilians and the deliberate targeting of a hospital in an attack, have emerged from people who have escaped from the city at the end of the major fighting.
They charged, in interviews, that as well as deaths from bombs and artillery shells, a large number of people, including children, were killed by American snipers.
Some of the killings took place in the build-up to the assault on the rebel stronghold, and at least in one case, that of the death of a family of seven, including a 3-month-old baby, American authorities have admitted responsibility and offered compensation.
Men of military age were particularly vulnerable. But there are also accounts of young children, women and old men being killed.
The American authorities have accused militant sympathisers of spreading disinformation, and have also claimed that people inside Fallujah had exaggerated the numbers of casualties and level of damage in the air campaign which preceded the assault.
The US military, which has launched an inquiry into last week's shooting of an injured Iraqi fighter in Fallujah by a US Marine, has said that any claims of abuse will be investigated. They also maintained that the dead and injured civilians may have been victims of insurgents, and not US forces.
The claims of abuse and killings, from different sources, appear, however to follow a consistent pattern.
