BBC ticker - 5 US Marines wounded by gunfire from within Falluja mosque

[omshanti]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Edit: When I first posted this, the headline said "killed by gunfire". Five minutes later it was changed to "wounded"

[Iceburg]

1. BBC Site is saying "wounded"

[omshanti]

2. Argh! It said "Killed" not 5 minutes ago...

I re-read it to make sure

hmm...
:tinfoilhat: (or initial reports could have been wrong)

[gp]

3. yeah i saw that too...it first said killed...n/t

[omshanti]

4. Thank you, was beginning to think I was crazy.

It's such a mess, hard to keep up with everything.

[daleo]

5. Is this the mosque they blew up?

Yes, it looks like it. A little p.r. damage control, to ease the impact of blowing up a mosque on the conscience of the U.S. public. They were quick to let this information out, even though they had previously said they wouldn't release operational information, as it could put marines at risk. Why doesn't this qualify? Oh, yeah, public relations.

[lostnfound]

6. The PR is working..

2 people today told me about it -- 'well, they were being fired upon by gunmen hiding in the mosque; our soldiers have a right to defend themselves'..

Sound byte politics.

We had bombs handy when this defense was required.

Never mind that there were children in there.

Never mind that this report is probably coming straight from a Pentagon press release, since I doubt that the BBC has a truly independent correspondent in Fallujah.

[IndianaGreen]

7. LTC Byrne: when we went in they didn't find any bad guys in the building

Among the casualties were a family sitting in a car parked behind the Abd al-Aziz al-Samarai mosque when it was bombed by a US airplane.

Another 53 Iraqis died in attacks overnight Tuesday on the town which was sealed off on Sunday by US forces. Twenty-five of those killed were from a single family.

<snip>

American forces initially said those killed in Wednesday's attack on the mosque were fighters taking refuge.

But a marine officer was later forced to admit that US forces had failed to find any bodies.

"When we hit that building I thought we had killed all the bad guys, but when we went in they didn't find any bad guys in the building," Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne told reporters.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A73529F1-1554-4C68-8774-BA478D565B02.htm

[daleo]

9. An old Viet Nam era Pogo comic comes to mind

"When we hit that building I thought we had killed all the bad guys, but when we went in they didn't find any bad guys in the building," Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne told reporters."

We have found the enemy, and they are us.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Pogo had it right

as did Al-Jazeera:

Among the casualties were a family sitting in a car parked behind the Abd al-Aziz al-Samarai mosque when it was bombed by a US airplane.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A73529F1-1554-4C68-8774-BA478D565B02.htm

[burrowowl]

11. Actually earlier

50's, McCarthy House Committee on UnAmerican Activities.

[daleo]

12. Thanks

It seems like every generation has to live through the truth of that comic.

[VolcanoJen]

8. This report saying 5 Killed is still on the AP Wire...

... and it remains linked-to by lunaville. I haven't heard a thing about it on the US media, so either initial reports were wrong, or they really do mean "media blackout in Fallujah."

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9225075%255E1702,00.html

Five US Marines dead in Fallujah
From correspondents in Baghdad
April 8, 2004

FIVE US Marines were killed today by gunfire from within the mosque in the Iraqi city of Fallujah that was under attack from US forces, a Central Command spokesman said.

US marines pressing an offensive Fallujah, west of Baghdad, bombed a central mosque earlier and killed up to 40 insurgents holed up inside, a marine officer in Iraq said.

The bombing came after several hours of small arms and rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fire from insurgents.

Earlier, The Associated Press reported the military as saying two US marines had been killed in fighting in Fallujah over the past two days.

But it said the marines had not given a full casualty count.