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Unlikely. Links at site:April 03, 2006
Headless in the Headlines
Greyhawk
(Update/bump from 2006-04-01 17:13:53)
NY Times headline, March 27: 30 Beheaded Bodies Found; Iraqi Death Squads Blamed
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 26 The bodies of 30 beheaded men were found on a main highway near Baquba this evening, providing more evidence that the death squads in Iraq are becoming out of control.But Blazing headlines notwithstanding, the odd thing about those headless bodies that provided more evidence that death squads in Iraq were out of control is that nobody ever claims to have actually seen them:
Interior Ministry officials said a driver discovered the bodies heaped in a pile next to a highway that links Baghdad to Baquba, a volatile city northeast of the capital that has been wracked by sectarian and insurgent violence.
Iraqi army troops were waiting tonight for American support before venturing into the insurgent-infested area to retrieve them.
"It's too dangerous for us to go in there alone," an Iraqi Army commander, Tassin Tawfik, said.
In short, some guy said he knew a guy that saw them. Which is how the story should have been reported - as a rumor. But it wasn't.
Yesterday's press briefing from Iraq:
Q About -- on the news that we heard this week of a number of headless bodies being found along a road in Baghdad. I was wondering what more you could tell us about that, what you know about the victims, and who the perpetrators were?
GEN. THURMAN: Okay. I did understand that question, and what I would tell you -- we have not confirmed that report. We went to multiple sites to look for the 32 headless bodies that was reported to our headquarters, and we did not find anything; nor did any of the local citizens that were in these areas could verify that anybody had ever been in there. So I look at that report as completely false right now.
But apparently within the standards of acceptable journalism for the New York Times.
Update: Times readers eager to find a correction will discover it featured prominently in paragraph 17 of this story
The police in western Baghdad discovered 14 bodies on Tuesday, all killed execution-style with gunshots to the head, apparently the latest victims of sectarian bloodletting. On Monday, Iraqi forces found 18 bodies near Baquba with similar wounds. Earlier reports of 30 beheaded bodies found in that area were wrong, the Interior Ministry official said.
Update 3 Apr:
U.S., Iraqi Troops Nab Insurgents Suspected In Mass SlayingThat's from Stars and Stripes. No doubt the NY Times has the story too.
More than a dozen rebels either caught or killed in Baqouba
BAQOUBA, Iraq More than a dozen insurgents suspected in the mass killing of 18 Shiites last week were arrested or killed Friday after U.S. and Iraqi army soldiers spent several hours chasing them through the rural farmland north of Baghdad.
The insurgents were spotted Friday in the flat and lawless area known to U.S. soldiers as Road Warrior land, which runs along a historic dividing line between the mostly Shiite areas of northwestern Baghdad and the Sunni villages of Diyala province.
Iraqi soldiers began chasing the team of insurgents after finding them loaded into seven cars roaming a main road and trying to hijack a cement truck early Friday afternoon.
Somewhere...
More: This report also confirms an earlier one on the topic:
BAQOUBA, Iraq A mass execution in a rural village north of Baghdad on Sunday night was the latest example of insurgents staging fake sectarian killings in order to fuel tensions between the Sunnis and Shiites, U.S. soldiers investigating the incident said.
An estimated 18 bodies were carted away from a small strip of stores that was strewn with bullets and covered with blood.
The killings occurred in a predominantly Sunni area about 40 miles north of Baghdad where several insurgent groups operate, U.S. soldiers said.
Local villagers told U.S. troops Sunday night that the killers wore Iraqi Army uniforms and claimed to be part of the Mahdi militia, a Shiite group loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
But Mahdi militia activity in this mostly Sunni area is almost unheard of and U.S. troops here speculate that the attackers were actually a team of Sunni insurgents trying to heighten the sectarian tensions that many believe have sparked hundreds of killings in recent weeks.
We think that an AIF (Anti-Iraqi Forces) cell working to create the perception of more sectarian violence moved to a predominantly Sunni area and executed people and said they were the Mahdi Army in order to foment more sectarian unrest, said Maj. John Digiambattista, the operations officer for the 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.
That's also from Stars and Stripes. There are thousands of actual and compelling stories to be found in Iraq, and the mainstream media misses them all in favor or urban legends.
These real stories have plenty of blood, death, human misery and suffering too, so "if it doesn't bleed it doesn't lead" can't be the reason.
Posted by Greyhawk at 06:59 PM
Someone should tell the NY Times about snopes.comThere are thousands of actual and compelling stories to be found in Iraq, and the mainstream media misses them all in favor or urban legends
