IRAQ: Abu Hassan thought he and his family were next as he watched, terrified, while US marines move from house to house in Haditha last November in what Iraqi residents say was a cold-blooded killing spree.
"I peeked through the curtain. They pushed their way into our neighbours' house, then I heard a lot of shooting. I thought our house was next," said Abu Hassan, who asked that his full name not be used for fear of reprisals.
The killings of four brothers in that house on November 19th are part of a military investigation into whether marines may have killed as many as two dozen civilians in the town, which US officials say could lead to charges including murder.
US commentators talk of "Iraq's My Lai" and wonder if Haditha could have a similar effect to the 1968 massacre in Vietnam on public attitudes to the military and the war.
But Haditha residents feel far removed from the growing controversy over the killings in Washington, where one anti-war congressman accused the marines of killing in cold blood. Six months on, they are trying to come to terms with their loss.
"The Americans came in and threw a hand grenade into the bathroom. They killed my father in the kitchen. Then they shot at all of us. I pretended I was dead," said Safa Younis (12), the only one of her family of eight to survive, in a video provided to Reuters by Iraq's Hammurabi Human Rights group. Abu Hassan and others witnessed far less but he said the bloodshed has taken a collective psychological toll on residents of the town, 200km west of Baghdad.
"Now the children run away when they see American Humvees. I am a grown man of 47 and I am also scared. I still see American snipers on rooftops and I head the other way," he said.
Abu Hassan's fear began when he heard a roadside bomb that killed one of the marines not far from his house. A similar explosive device had killed 14 marines last August and the possibility of such attacks always keep Americans on edge.
"I looked up a few minutes later and I saw marines open fire on two houses from a distance. Then they entered those houses and I heard shooting. They were moving in small groups," he said during a visit to Baghdad.
"One group moved to my neighbour's house more than two hours after the bomb went off. After they entered there was a lot of shooting. The mother began screaming, 'my sons, my sons'. She kept screaming for a long time after they left," he said.
"We tried to calm her but we could not."
Abu Hassan said the marines killed the woman's adult sons - Jamal, Chasib, Qahtaan and Marwan. Their deaths came after Haditha had survived six months of battles between al-Qaeda militants - whom residents said violently imposed their radical views of Islam on the town - and marines who launched several offensives in the region. - (Reuters)