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[b]The real story of Baghdad's Bloody Sunday [/b]

Six days ago, at least 28 civilians died in a shooting
incident involving the US security company Blackwater.
But what actually happened? Kim Sengupta reports from
the scene of the massacre

INDEPENDENT - Friday 21 September 2007

The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious,
round after round mowing down terrified men women and
children, slamming into cars as they collided and
overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape.
Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol
tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of
them, trapped in the flames.

The shooting on Sunday, by the guards of the American
private security company Blackwater, has sparked one
of the most bitter and public disputes between the
Iraqi government and its American patrons, and brings
into sharp focus the often violent conduct of the
Western private armies operating in Iraq since the
2003 invasion, immune from scrutiny or prosecution.

Blackwater's security men are accused of going on an
unprovoked killing spree. Hassan Jabar Salman, a
lawyer, was shot four times in the back, his car
riddled with eight more bullets, as he attempted to
get away from their convoy. Yesterday, sitting swathed
in bandages at Baghdad's Yarmukh Hospital, he recalled
scenes of horror. "I saw women and children jump out
of their cars and start to crawl on the road to escape
being shot," said Mr Salman. "But still the firing
kept coming and many of them were killed. I saw a boy
of about 10 leaping in fear from a minibus, he was
shot in the head. His mother was crying out for him,
she jumped out after him, and she was killed. People
were afraid."

At the end of the prolonged hail of bullets Nisoor
Square was a scene of carnage with bodies strewn
around smouldering wreckage. Ambulances trying to pick
up the wounded found their path blocked by crowds
fleeing the gunfire.

Yesterday, the death toll from the incident, according
to Iraqi authorities, stood at 28. And it could rise
higher, say doctors, as some of the injured, hit by
high-velocity bullets at close quarter, are unlikely
to survive.

With public anger among Iraqis showing no sign of
abating, the US administration has suspended all land
movement by officials outside the heavily fortified
Green Zone.

The Iraqi government has revoked Blackwater's licence
to operate but it still remains employed by the US
government. The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice,
has, however, promised a "transparent" inquiry into
what happened.

Blackwater and the US State Department maintain that
the guards opened fire in self-defence as they reacted
to a bomb blast and then sniper fire. Amid continuing
accusations and recriminations, The Independent has
tried to piece together events on that day.

The reports we got from members of the public, Iraqi
security personnel and government officials, as well
as our own research, leads to a markedly different
scenario than the American version. There was a bomb
blast. But it was too far away to pose any danger to
the Blackwater guards, and their State Department
charges. We have found no Iraqi present at the scene
who saw or heard sniper fire.

Witnesses say the first victims of the shootings were
a couple with their child, the mother and infant
meeting horrific deaths, their bodies fused together
by heat after their car caught fire. The contractors,
according to this account, also shot Iraqi soldiers
and police and Blackwater then called in an attack
helicopter from its private air force which inflicted
further casualties.

Blackwater disputes most of this. In a statement the
company declared that those killed were "armed
insurgents and our personnel acted lawfully and
appropriately in a war zone protecting American
lives".

The day after the killings, Mirenbe Nantongo, a
spokeswoman for the US embassy, said the Blackwater
team had " reacted to a car bombing". The embassy's
information officer, Johann Schmonsees, stressed " the
car bomb was in proximity to the place where State
Department personnel were meeting, and that was the
reason why Blackwater responded to the incident" .

Those on the receiving end tell another story. Mr
Salman said he had turned into Nisoor Square behind
the Blackwater convoy when the shooting began. He
recalled: "There were eight foreigners in four utility
vehicles, I heard an explosion in the distance and
then the foreigners started shouting and signalling
for us to go back. I turned the car around and must
have driven about a hundred feet when they started
shooting. My car was hit with 12 bullets it turned
over. Four bullets hit me in the back and another in
the arm. Why they opened fire? I do not know. No one,
I repeat no one, had fired at them. The foreigners had
asked us to go back and I was going back in my car, so
there was no reason for them to shoot."

Muhammed Hussein, whose brother was killed in the
shooting, said: "My brother was driving and we saw a
black convoy ahead of us. Then I saw my brother
suddenly slump in the car. I dragged him out of the
car and saw he had been shot in the chest. I tried to
hide us both from the firing, but then I realised he
was already dead."

Jawad Karim Ali was on his way to pick up his aunt
from Yarmukh Hospital when shooting started and the
windscreen exploded cutting his face. " Then I was hit
on my left shoulder by bullets, two of them another
one went past my face. Now my aunt is out of hospital
and I am sitting here. There was a big bang further
away but no shots before the security people fired,
and they just kept firing."

Baghdad's "Bloody Sunday" has become a test of
sovereignty between the powers of the Iraqi government
and the US. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki,
said: "We will not tolerate the killing of our
citizens in cold blood." The shooting was, he said,
the seventh of its kind involving Blackwater.

The company, which has its headquarters in North
Carolina, is one of the largest beneficiaries of the
lucrative occupation dividend, holding the contract to
provide security for top-level American officials.

Its reputation in Iraq is particularly controversial.
It was the lynching of four of the company's employees
in 2004 which led to the bloody confrontation in
Fallujah. The men's bodies were set on fire, dragged
through the streets and then hung from a bridge.
Blackwater personnel are recognisable from their
"uniform" of wraparound sunglasses and body armour
over dark coloured sweatshirts and helmets. Employees
are thought to earn about $600 (£300) per day.

Sunday's shooting happened at Mansour, once one of the
most fashionable districts of Baghdad, with roads
flanked by shops selling expensive goods, restaurants
and art galleries. In the height of the sectarian
bloodletting between Shias and Sunnis earlier this
year dead bodies would be regularly strewn in the
streets. A semblance of safety has returned since, and
Mansour was held up as an example of how the US
military "surge" was cutting the violence.

We were in Mansour on Sunday when we heard the sound
of a deafening explosion just after midday. Black
plumes of smoke rose from a half-blasted National
Guard (army) post near a mosque. Five or six minutes
afterwards there was the sound of prolonged shooting
towards the south.

Police Captain Ali Ibrahim, who was on duty near
Nisoor Square, said: " We heard the bomb go off, it
was very loud, but it wasn't at the square. The police
were, in fact, trying to clear the way for the
contractors when they became agitated, they opened
fire. No one was shooting at them."

Asked about the witness accounts, Ali al-Dabbagh, an
Iraqi government spokesman, confirmed: "The traffic
policemen were trying to open the road for them. It
was a crowded square and one small car did not stop,
it was moving very slowly. They started shooting
randomly, there was a couple and their child inside
the car and they were hit."