Tal Afar Parents Shot Dead

Tal Afar Parents Shot Dead
Location of Nineveh Governorate in Iraq
Location	Tal Afar, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq
Date	18 January 2005
Deaths	2
Non-fatal injuries	5
Perpetrators	United States Armed Forces

On Tuesday, January 18, 2005, at about 5:45pm, Hussein and Kamila Hassan, their 5 children and a cousin were traveling home in a small, red Opel sedan in Tal Afar. They turned off the City's main traffic circle onto Mansour Boulevard where a unit of soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division (out of Fort Lewis, WA) were on a combat patrol. There were 8-10 soldiers, an interpreter (who didn't speak Turkmen, the language of 80 per cent of the population) and 'embedded' Getty Images photojournalist Chris Hondros. They were walking tactically along the road, at intervals of approximately 20 meters (as photographed) and no doubt difficult to see in their camouflaged uniforms, against the closed shopfronts and fading light.

The family is thought to have been trying to return home expeditiously from a visit to the hospital (infant Mohammad had been ill) as nightfall and the 6pm curfew arrived. The car approached the soldiers but it was not approaching any checkpoint, as was erroneously reported in both the BBC and The Guardian as per an Associated Press release issued the following day. Chris Hondros later said he heard the car's engine whining as if it was speeding up and this is probably true as vehicles that turn off an intersection and that travel down slight inclines (as Mansour Blvd is, at this point) may be presumed to be increasing speed up to the speed limit. It is likely that the driver, Hussein Hassan, was also conscious of the impending curfew at 6pm - this was interpreted by some locals (in a culture that did not value clock-watching) and sometimes enforced by the Coalition military - as nightfall. Somewhat ironically, it had been the platoon that had been late leaving their base (possibly due to a passing shower).

In response to a call to "Stop that car!" from one of the soldiers, some soldiers in the platoon waved an arm to try to get the attention of the driver, Hussein Hassan, and if this occurred it is likely their gestures were 'Western' in that waving with one arm (while holding a heavy weapon in the other) did not take into account local cultural differences. In some Central Asian societies, the waving of arms may not necessarily be interpreted as a warning to stop and arms crossed above head and legs planted firmly and widely is a more appropriate signal to warn.

The soldiers may have feared an attack as they had been involved in a gun battle in the same neighborhood two days previously and they may also have feared a suicide car bomb attack as Mosul, 80 km East, had had 6 vehicle suicide attacks in 2004. It was much more likely the vehicle was not a suicide bomber. In January, 2005, Time Magazine described Tal Afar as a "Pro-American" area; the city had, to that point not had a suicide car bombing; the car had a passenger in the front seat; the car was not near a checkpoint; the vehicle did not match the common profile of a suicide attack vehicle (as at Jan, 2005 - a utility 'pick up') and the three Stryker vehicles that were stationed ahead were armoured, blocking the right-hand lane, and had presumably been parked there surreptitiously on a covert 'combat patrol' mission suggesting they were unlikely targets (it is also not incidental that suicide bombers in the wider Baghdad region, at least, were rigged so that they had to hold their hand on the trigger to stop it detonating, meaning shooting them dead at close range was not a particularly safe strategy). Given all of this and the fact that the curfew was approaching, it was very likely the vehicle was not a suicide car bomb (if there was any danger from explosives, in Jan., 2005, it was from roadside bombs as one had exploded 11 months earlier in Feb, 2004 in Tal Afar killing a local dignitary). Regardless, six soldiers shot at the car with their Colt submachine guns and Benelli 12-gauge military shotguns and eyewitness Chris Hondros said-

There was a "cacophony of fire, shots rattling off in a chaotic overlapping din. The car entered the intersection on its momentum and still shots were penetrating it and slicing it. Finally the shooting stopped, the car drifted listlessly, clearly no longer being steered, and came to a rest on a curb."

Significantly, while dusk was receding to evening and street lights and car headlights were beginning to have a slight impact, there was clear visibility at the time of the shooting, especially in regard to identifying that there was a front seat passenger. Indeed bullet holes in left of the windscreen suggest this person was deliberately targeted and the soldiers' weapons suggested they had telescopic sights. Inside the car, as it had traveled along the boulevard, Rakan had been the first to see one or more of the soldiers but, as he alerted his father, there was the burst of gunfire, which killed his parents and paralyzed him.

One soldier has written "When the vehicle failed to stop, several soldiers then fired directly at it with automatic and semi-automatic fire (hitting the windscreen, left and centre), which killed the driver and the front passenger", however, this is not the whole truth in that it seems reasonable to conclude, given the number of shooters and duration, that 50-150 projectiles were fired at it, shattering side and rear windows (Newsweek 28 March 2005). The vehicle come to a stop at a near right angle. Both parents, Hussein and Kamila Hassan, who were sitting in the front seats were killed instantly by multiple shots to the head and upper body. Blood spatter on the interior of the windscreen (lower center) and an apparent exit wound on Hussein's face suggest the fatal shots came from behind as the car moved away from the shooter. One of the six children sitting in the rear, Rakan, 11, was rendered a paraplegic by a serious wound to his lower back. He was treated at the roadside by S-Sgt. Darrell Griffin to prevent blood loss and transported to and treated at the local clinic. In 2006, Rakan Hassan was flown to Boston, MA, for treatment due, primarily, to the efforts of American aid worker, Marla Ruzicka as well as Senator Ted Kennedy. Rakan was later returned to Iraq and was killed there in 2008 on a bomb blast on his home (his uncle suggested he was targeted by insurgents who thought he was an American spy because he had accompanied Rakan). Daughter Jilan, 14, was treated for superficial smithereen injuries to her face; Samar, 7, was treated for a bullet wound to her right hand and cuts to her face; and Rana, 7, and Mohammad, 2, as well as cousin Rashda, 6, were physically uninjured but all traumatised. They were also taken to the local hospital but returned to their home by an ambulance driver as the soldiers had returned to their base, after a brief meeting en-route. The Coalition military, represented by the United States, later gave an 'elder' of the orphaned children $7,500 (from the $6 billion it was spending every month in Iraq at that time) as a gesture of sympathy but the New York Times reported that the children all went to live with their oldest sister in Mosul and may not have benefited from the money.

Chris Hondros took powerful pictures of the shooting and aftermath and quickly sent the photos onto Getty Images headquarters via Italy. Hondros won several awards for the still photos of five-year-old Samar Hassan, including World Press Photo (Spot News) second prize, 2006 and the Robert Capa Gold Medal, 2005, for his general Iraq photography. This photo appears to have been published most widely in Europe, Canada and Ireland, which is to say, countries not directly involved in the war and the series of photos remained on the BBC News website (as of 2016). There was an extensive photo slide show along with Hondros' account of the incident published on Newsweek.com. however, this story contains factual inaccuracies, misleading statements, and conspicuous omissions. Chris Hondros indicated in this (second, of four) account that the incident was emblematic of the reality of the horrors that can occur during war. Chris Hondros was asked to leave his embedded position, after just five days, despite risking his life two days earlier to photograph this same platoon in an heroic light during an ongoing street battle (but didn't let the grass grow under his feet as he was in Baghdad later that same day recording Sen. John Kerry's third visit to Iraq). The images Hondros took raise important questions about photojournalism ethics in regard to defenceless, traumatized (orphaned) children and ethical or legal consent as well as the regime of journalism 'objectivity' where journalists consider themselves detached bystanders that privileges scientific-determinist behaviour above active caring and compassion.

While Hondros was an independent witness, his written accounts and quotes to journalists about the incident in four respected publications immediately and years after the event attest to the value of the 'embedded' strategy for the Coalition military in that Hondros occasionally used language to downplay the incident suggesting his patriotism (or at least, native US acculturation) overrode his commitment to complete objectivity and the absolute truth (for example, in The Independent UK, 20 Jan, 2005, he infers it was dark at the time of the shooting when it wasn't; he states that Rakan had been "winged" when it must have been immediately clear to him - only meters away on the street and at the hospital- that Rakan had sustained a very serious injury when he couldn't move his legs at all and was bleeding profusely; and in Boston to report on Rakan's surgery he was still inferring there was a checkpoint). These statements are perhaps understandable given he relied on the soldiers for his own safety, security, food, shelter and transport and probably established friendships with some of them. He skill and courage then, and in repeatedly touring Iraq and other war zones, cannot be questioned. Hondros was killed in Misrata, Libya in 2011.

The incident appears emblematic of a Coalition approach to the insurgency in the area at this time as David R. McCone, Wilbur J. Scott, and George R. Mastroianni (2008) note: "The 3rd ACR (not the unit involved in the aforementioned incident) was neither configured nor trained to fight person-on-person, much less confront an ill- defined insurgency. Featuring Bradley fighting vehicles, Abrams tanks, Apache attack helicopters, and armed-to-the-teeth dismounts, it settled into aggressive, armor-based patrolling and searching routines. Though well-intentioned, these heavy-handed techniques were better suited for a conventional battlefield than one populated by towns, villages, and, of course, civilians."

For this incident, the chain of command appears to have been Capt. Thomas Siebold, Command Maj. Brent Clemmer, Lieut.Gen. David Petraeus, Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (who, in Jan. 2005, refused to recognise there was an insurgency in Iraq) and President George W. Bush.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]}

References

1. "Checkpoints test US troops' rules". BBC News. March 8, 2005. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
2. "The Best of Photo Journalism 2006 > Still Photography Winners > International News Picture Story 1st Place". National Press Photographers Association.
3. "In pictures: Shooting in Tal Afar". BBC News. January 2005. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
4. "One Night in Iraq: Chris Hondros Witnesses A Shooting After Nightfall". The Times Online. London. January 21, 2005. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
5. "Chris Hondros Wins OPC's Robert Capa Gold Medal Award". The Stock Photo Industry Press Release Cemetery. April 19, 2006.
6. Chittister, Joan (January 28, 2005). "What the Rest of the World Watched on Inauguration Day". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
7. "The Photographers". Getty Images.
8. "The Photographers Award Winning Work By Chris Hondros", Getty Images, archived from the original on November 10, 2007
9. Hondros, Chris. "The Continuing Story". Colombia Journalism Review.