Terrified Iraqi family caught in confused firefight

Confused frontline crossfire ripped apart an Iraqi family yesterday after Iraqi soldiers appeared to force the four civilians towards US Marine positions, American officers told Reuters at the scene.

A four-year-old girl, blood streaming from an eye wound, screamed for her dead mother while her father, shot in the leg, begged to be freed from the plastic wrist-cuffs slapped on him by the Marines, so he could hug his terrified younger daughter.

The Rahi family was treated by US medics after crawling towards a military checkpoint in the aftermath of a volley of heavy gunfire from US positions. Initially the father of the two young girls was handcuffed but was quickly untied.

The Marines said they fired after Iraqi soldiers came behind the family car and fired through its windows, killing the wife of Haytham Rahi, a civil servant from the town of Rifa, to the south of the US positions where the shooting occurred.

The massive firestorm the Marines unleashed killed two Iraqi soldiers and could have caused some of the injuries to the family. Three other Iraqi troops were taken prisoner.

The names of the two children were not available. The elder daughter was hit in the eye, the stomach and the shoulder. Her younger sister was not injured.

Their badly damaged car lay in no-man's land. Behind it stood a truck, from which Marine Captain Daniel Rose said the Iraqi soldiers jumped out to threaten the family in the car.

US Marines are extremely wary of suicide bombings after an attack near Najaf killed four soldiers. They suspect treachery from surrendering Iraqis who, they say, have launched ambushes while pretending to give themselves up.

In the confused situation while the family were treated and loaded onto a helicopter for transport to a US military hospital it was not possible to discover why they were trying to move south towards US tanks parked behind barbed wire.

US commanders allege that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's loyalists have terrorised families and used violence to prevent soldiers surrendering to the invading forces.

"I think they forced that family to come down here," said Captain Rose of the Marines, who thought the civilians were being used to test US defences.

"We're going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and they're using that against us. It's tragic that they're doing this," he added. It was not possible to interview the Iraqi prisoners to ask for their version of events.

The US military is deep in territory it regards as hostile and treats anybody moving near it with suspicion. Loudspeakers blast out 'Stay Away' messages in Arabic and the troops finger their weapons nervously after a week of fighting northward.

Officers say they have to be vigilant. This week a senior officer was shot four times by Iraqis while trying to accept their surrender and a US sniper killed an Iraqi attacker who used two surrendering soldiers to shield him, officers said.

But US forces may also face charges they are trigger-happy in a place where they want to win civilians over to their side. One Marine battalion shot dead a man on Friday who walked towards them and refused verbal instructions to stop.

Marines later approached the truck involved in Saturday's incident with the Rahi family and killed a man inside who, they said, had been pretending to be dead but then jumped up with a pistol. The truck was found to be carrying military equipment.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war