Survivors say Marines went house to house in a rage

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The killing began shortly after sunrise on a November day in Haditha. As a U.S. patrol rolled through the sleepy riverside city, a homemade bomb exploded beneath the belly of a Humvee.

The blast killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, a Marine from El Paso, Texas, triggering a murderous rage by some fellow Marines, according to survivors and witnesses.

They say Marines rampaged through a quiet street, bursting into homes and gunning down civilians, including children, women and an 89-year-old man in a wheelchair.

The accounts, gleaned from interviews conducted by Iraqi reporters for the Los Angeles Times in Baghdad and Haditha, appear to match details emerging from a military investigation into the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians on Nov. 19. The Iraqi reporter in Haditha cannot be named for security reasons.

In the United States, the killings are joining the Abu Ghraib torture case as an emblem of how U.S. military personnel in Iraq can come unhinged amid mistrust, fear and bloody violence.

After the roadside bombing, the Marines arrived first at the door of Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali, 89, who had been using a wheelchair after his left leg was amputated. They shot him dead and then turned their guns on his three sons and their families, survivors said.

Waleed Abdul Hameed, 48, a worker in an Anbar religious-affairs office, was among the first of the family members to be gunned down.

His 9-year-old daughter, Eman, who survived, said she was wearing her pajamas when the Marines arrived. Her brother, Abdul Rahman, 7, also survived, and said he hid his face with a blanket when his father was shot.

Minutes later, the boy saw his mother fall to the ground, dying.

"I saw her while she was crying. She fell down on the floor bleeding," said the boy, who started crying, covered his eyes with his hands and began to mutter.

His older sister described how the two siblings waited for help.

"We were scared," she said. "I tried to hide under the bed." With shrapnel injuries to both legs, she lay still for two hours.

Around her, seven family members lay dead: Ali and his wife; their three sons and one daughter-in-law; and their 5-year-old grandson. Only one of the household's adults lived through that morning.

In the first moments of shooting, Hibba Abdullah snatched her 5-month-old niece off the floor.

The baby's mother had dropped her in shock after seeing her husband gunned down. Clutching the child, Abdullah scampered out of the house. She and the baby, Asia, both survived.

The baby's mother "completely collapsed when they killed her husband in front of her," she said. "I ran away carrying Asia [the baby] outside the house, but when the Americans returned they killed Asma, the mother of the child."

Abdullah's 39-year-old husband also slipped out of the house and ran to warn his nearby cousins about the killings.

But he crossed paths with the Americans on his way back home; he died of gunshot wounds in his shoulder and head, his wife said.

The Marines stopped next at the home of Customs official Younis Salim Nusaif, 45, and his wife, Aida Yassin.

The mother of six children, Yassin, 42, was in bed that morning, recovering from an operation. Her sister had come to stay with the family and help with the housework.

Everybody was at home when the gunmen arrived. Except for one 12-year-old daughter, the family was wiped out. Four girls and one boy, ranging in age from 4 to 15, were shot dead by the Marines, neighbors and the surviving child said.

Safa Younis Salim, the 12-year-old, said she lay on the ground, covered with her sister's blood, and pretended to be dead while her family died around her. Her sister's blood spurted fast; it was like a water tap, she said.

Safa was withdrawn and reluctant to talk about the attack. Only after relatives coaxed her to speak did she describe how she played dead to stay alive that morning.

The Marines yelled in the faces of her family members before they shot them, she said. After they were shot, they kicked them and hit the bodies with their guns.

"I feel sorry. I was wishing to be alive," Safa said. "Now I wish I had died with them."

The Marines moved along the street. Next, they shot dead four brothers, ages 20 to 38, their mother said. At that home, the Marines herded the women outside, pointed guns at their heads and ordered them to stay still, according to the woman, who did not want her name published.

The men were grouped inside. Gunfire rang out.

"After some minutes the [Marines] ran out and left the house," she said.

The women went inside and found the men dead.

"They were shot in different parts of their bodies," she said. "Spots of blood covered the place. Blood was coming out."

The last five men to die came upon the scene by chance. Four university students, two of them brothers, and their taxi driver drove too close to where the families had been killed. Witnesses said Marines stopped their car, ordered them to get out and shot them dead.

When the killing had ended, the Americans continued to guard the street, keeping relatives away, townspeople said. The Marines eventually took the bodies to the hospital, a medical source in Haditha said.

Since that November day, the people of Haditha have been haunted. Survivors described sinking into depression.

Much of the talk in town has centered on the U.S. offer of $2,500 in compensation for each death. Some families say they turned down the money.

U.S. investigators arrived in March, the townspeople said. They brought cameras to record the witnesses, and toys for the surviving children.

An unidentified Los Angeles Times reporter in Haditha and reporter Zainab Hussein in Baghdad contributed to this report.