Here and There Blog

Times Online - Sunday Times

Death sentence hangs over Iraq's hostages

IRAQI gunmen holding an American hostage threatened last night to kill him unless US forces ended the siege of Falluja, where 450 civilians were reported to have died in heavy fighting last week.

The Arab television station, Al-Jazeera, broadcast a videotape of the captive looking shocked and exhausted 24 hours after he was seized in an attack on a US convoy between Falluja and Baghdad.

The middle-aged man, who was filmed in front of an Iraqi flag, was said to be a civilian contractor working for the American military. He identified himself as Thomas Hamill and said he was being well treated by his kidnappers. They had given him medical assistance for an arm wound, he said.

However, a spokesman for the captors said off camera that US troops must end their action at Falluja, where four American civilians were burnt and mutilated by a mob last week.

“Our only demand is to remove the siege from the city of mosques,” he said. “If you don’t respond within 12 hours . . . he will be treated worse than those who were killed and burnt in Falluja.”

The same station claimed earlier that three Japanese civilians — two aid workers and a photographer — captured earlier in the week would be freed this morning. Al-Jazeera said their kidnappers, who had threatened to kill them, had responded to a call by the Muslim Clerics Association.

However, two members of German special forces who had been missing since Wednesday were reported to have died in a gun battle. The men, Thomas Ritrath, 25, and Thomas Haffenker, 38, were members of the elite GSG-9 counter-terrorism unit. They disappeared after the six-vehicle convoy in which they were travelling came under attack.

Armed rebels showed a blood-caked body to Lee Gordon, a freelance journalist, who said he had seen a German identification badge in the victim’s wallet. He described how a teenager had been sharply rebuked by his commander for posing with one foot on the body.

There was continuing concern over the fate of a Briton who vanished in the city of Nasiriya six days ago. Gary Teeley, 37, a married man from Cambridgeshire with five children, was working as a consultant to a laundry contractor.

The spate of kidnappings provides a grim backdrop to a visit by Tony Blair to Washington on Friday. The prime minister will press President George W Bush for a diplomatic offensive in Europe to secure support for urgent measures to deal with the escalating crisis in Iraq.

Blair is to propose a tour of European capitals by Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, or Colin Powell, secretary of state. They are seen as the most likely figures in the Washington administration to win over critics of America’s tactics in Iraq, which senior figures in London described last week as heavy-handed. Blair wants international agreement on an enhanced United Nations role in supervising the handover of power to the Iraqis on June 30 and in organising elections to follow.

In further violence yesterday the US army killed 12 insurgents in a truck in northern Iraq. A senior Iraqi Red Crescent official and his wife were shot dead in their car in a separate incident.

Youths armed with rifles and grenade launchers fought American troops in a Sunni Muslim area of Baghdad, and shooting and mortar fire continued in Falluja, although Iraqi leaders were reported to have agreed a brief truce with the Americans. A US spokesman said five foreign fighters from Egypt, Syria and Sudan were among 60 guerrillas detained there.

News of Blair’s initiative came amid anxiety in Whitehall about the ferocity of the offensive in Falluja and a warning by a US military spokesman that the militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi’ite leader, would be destroyed.

Dr Ayad Allawi, a senior member of the Iraqi Governing Council, urged the Americans not to carry out the threat against al-Sadr, who was holed up at a mosque in the holy city of Najaf at the climax of a religious festival that attracted thousands of Shi’ite Muslims.

“There is a danger of a bloodbath if this is allowed to turn into more confrontation,” Allawi said.

Last night several members of the Governing Council were negotiating with al-Sadr to end the Shi’ite uprising.

British military commanders have complained that aggressive American tactics risk spreading the insurgency and have voiced fears of “strategic failure” in Iraq.

A senior Whitehall source said: “The Americans have a different military doctrine to us — that is to use overwhelming military force. Our approach is primarily that which we took in Northern Ireland and in the south of Iraq, which is to engage with the people.”

Blair hopes Bush will adopt “a more conciliatory tone” towards allies and potential allies in the war on terror. But diplomatic sources emphasised that the two leaders would present a united front after their summit. They are expected to insist that there is no question of delaying the transfer of power in Iraq beyond the June 30 deadline.

Blair says in a newspaper article today that he will not flinch from the “historic struggle” in Iraq, a battle the government has to win.

The prime minister says hopes of freedom and religious tolerance would be “snuffed out” if the coalition failed in Iraq. Writing in The Observer, he insists Iraq is not descending into civil war, dismissing insurgents as supporters of Saddam Hussein, Al-Qaida-backed terrorists and followers of al-Sadr.

“When (some) call on us to bring the troops home, do they seriously think that this would slake the thirst of these extremists, to say nothing of what it would do to the Iraqis?” says Blair, who is in Bermuda with his family.

The prime minister, who will visit Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the UN, in New York while on his way to Washington, wants to see the organisation restore a strong presence in Iraq as soon as possible. One proposal to be discussed is to ask President Jacques Chirac for French troops to protect UN officials.

Four British soldiers were wounded in a rocket- propelled grenade attack in Basra as the insurgency spread southwards.

Additional reporting: Robert Winnett, Hala Jaber, Adam Nathan, Gareth Walsh

英国メディアの報道：
ほぼ、英国時間１０日夜7：30～8：00の時間です。

Report: Japanese hostages to be released

Report: Japanese hostages to be released 8.02PM, Sat Apr 10 2004

An Iraqi group which claimed to have kidnapped three Japanese has said it will release them unharmed within 24 hours, Al Jazeera has reported.

Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event

HOSTAGES TO BE FREED

Iraqi militants will free three Japanese hostages within the next 24 hours, according to an Arab TV network.

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Japanese hostages 'to be freed'

An Iraqi group holding three Japanese citizens hostage has reportedly said it will release them within hours.

以下が記事の引用です。

Telegraph | News | Pull out troops or we burn hostages alive

Pull out troops or we burn hostages alive
By David Blair in Baghdad, Colin Joyce in Tokyo and Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 09/04/2004) Iraqi gunmen took three Japanese civilians captive yesterday and threatened to burn them alive unless Tokyo withdrew its forces, sharply raising the stakes in the uprising that has swept central and southern Iraq.

As coalition troops fought house-to-house to subdue the town of Fallujah, having earlier lost control of several towns, the insurgents opened up a new front with a rash of kidnappings.

The hostages are Miss Nahoko Takato, 34, Noriaki Imai, 18, both aid workers, and Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a press cameraman.

The gunmen standing behind them in a bullet-scarred room said they were members of the Mujahideen Brigades, a hitherto unknown group.

They issued a statement to Japan: "Three of your children have fallen into our hands and we give you two options - withdraw your forces or we will burn them alive and feed them to the fighters. You have three days."

Other non-Iraqis appeared to be among the hostages, raising speculation that one could be Gary Teeley, 37, a British contractor seized on Tuesday near Nasiriyah. A Canadian aid worker has also been kidnapped.

Mr Teeley, a father of five, moved to Dubai more than two years ago and was in charge of a laundry contract for a Qatari firm at a US base. No demand has been made by his captors.

Rejecting the ultimatum, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yasuo Fukuda, said: "Our Self-Defence Forces are providing reconstruction support for Iraqi people so there is no reason to withdraw.

"If innocent civilians are taken hostage as reported, it is unforgivable. We demand their immediate release."

Kidnapping and robbery, always a danger on Iraq's lawless roads, has been elevated to an act of resistance against the coalition.

Iranian television reported that two Israeli Arabs, one of them working for an American aid agency, had been captured by a group calling itself Ansar al-Din group.

Seven pastors from South Korea were taken prisoner while driving along the main highway linking Baghdad with the Jordanian capital, Amman. Gunmen detained them for several hours before releasing them unharmed. The highway runs past Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, and directly through the area where the fighting was most intense.

Two marines were killed as US forces fought street by street to root out militants after gunmen killed four US civilian security contractors and publicly mutilated their bodies last week. Six US soldiers have died in the last two days.

The area has been sealed off since Monday and bombarded by helicopters, jet fighters and heavy artillery.

Hospitals in Fallujah reported that about 300 Iraqis had died in the fighting, the heaviest since the war last year. Appeals for medicine, food and blood donations have been broadcast by mosques across Baghdad.

Sympathy for Fallujah's 250,000 people, who are overwhelmingly Sunni, transcends Iraq's sectarian divide and is causing deep anger against the Americans.

Followers of the militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have seized full or partial control of four cities and towns - Kut, Najaf, Karbala and Kufa - since the uprising began last weekend.

America's most senior general in Iraq promised to retake them. The eviction of Sadr's Mahdi army from Kut is particularly important after the gunmen drove a Ukrainian battalion out of the provincial capital on Wednesday.

Gen Ricardo Sanchez said that Operation Resolute Sword would be launched to retake Kut "imminently". He said coalition forces would mount "deliberate, precise and robust combat operations to separate, isolate and destroy the enemy wherever we find him".

The Shi'ite festival of Arba'een has drawn hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across the world to Najaf and Karbala, complicating any plans for a military offensive.

Sadr is believed to be inside the Shrine of Ali, in Najaf, one the holiest sites of the Shi'ite strand of Islam.

Polish and Bulgarian forces came under heavy attack in Karbala. Their base in the city hall was hit by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades from a large force of Sadr militiamen. But the coalition forces suffered no casualties and were not dislodged.

The past five days of fighting have claimed the lives of 50 coalition soldiers and about 460 Iraqis, prompting critics of President George W Bush to draw comparisons with the quagmire of the Vietnam war.

But Gen Sanchez said: "I don't see any shadows of Vietnam in Iraq."

Earlier in the day, Nuri Badran, Iraq's interim interior minister, resigned. He was responsible for the 70,000-strong police force, which has failed to resist Sadr's militias. In some cases police have sided with the gunmen against US forces.

Mr Badran said he was resigning because Paul Bremer, the American administrator, was "not satisfied with the performance of the interior ministry".

Recent events have shown that Iraq will be dependent on the coalition to provide security long after the June 30 deadline for the transfer of sovereignty

Times Online - World

Families plead for Japanese hostages From Richard Lloyd Parry and Leo Lewis in Tokyo

THE families of three Japanese hostages in Iraq yesterday pleaded with their Government to save their lives by pulling its troops out of the country after Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister, insisted there would be no compromise with the kidnappers.

Japanese, American and British intelligence officials were scrambling to track down the hostage takers, who have threatened to burn their young captives alive tomorrow if Japan’s Self-Defence Forces do not withdraw from Iraq.

Japanese politicians and officials were bracing themselves for an emotional public reaction if, as many now fear is inevitable, the captives are murdered.

“Politically speaking, we’re preparing for the worst,” Kiyohiko Toyama, a Japanese MP for the Komei party, the coalition partner of Mr Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic Party, told The Times. “We have a reasonable expectation that these people might be killed by the hostage takers.”

The seizure of the three hostages, including an 18-year-old who had just left school, leaves Mr Koizumi in an agonising position, trapped between the demands of his closest allies and those of the Japanese public. Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, flies into Tokyo today to give a show of American support to Mr Koizumi, and to urge him not to give in to the kidnappers.

Asked if there was any chance of the Japanese Government yielding to the demands of the hostages, Mr Koizumi replied: “We will not yield to any despicable threat by terrorists.”

As the US and its allies urged Mr Koizumi to stand firm, the families of the captives begged the Government to pull the Japanese SelfDefence Forces out of Iraq and save the lives of their loved ones.

Naoko Imai, the mother of 18-year-old Noriaki Imai, said: “I don’t think they can be saved if the Government does not consider pulling the troops out — there are only two days left.” Kimiko Koriyama, whose 32-year-old son, Soichiro, is among the hostages, said: “I cannot bear to think that my child might be burned alive.”

The two men, along with Nahoko Takato, a 34-year-old female aid worker, were kidnapped while travelling along the dangerous road between Amman, the Jordanian capital, and Baghdad. A video, showing the blindfolded captives screaming as knives are pressed against their throats, was delivered on Thursday to al-Jazeera, the Arabic television channel, along with a letter insisting that the Japanese troops pull out within three days.

The captors identified themselves as a hitherto unknown group called Saraya al-Mujahideen (Mujahideen Brigades). Yesterday, officials in Tokyo and Baghdad were poring over the video and letter for clues which might lead them to the hostages. The US and British Governments have promised to share intelligence with Tokyo. But Japanese officials hold out little hope of a rescue before tomorrow’s deadline, and are concentrating on minimising the political damage.

“When the worst does happen the Government will be able to say it did everything in its power,” a senior government official said last night.

The Japanese Foreign Minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, met relatives of the hostages yesterday. In Parliament, Mr Koizumi insisted on business as usual, resisting opposition calls for a special debate on the hostage crisis.

“In the end it depends on the Japanese public’s reaction,” said Mr Toyama, a senior aide to the Komeito leader, Takenori Kanzaki, who visited Iraq last year.

“I think 50 to 60 per cent of Japanese people support the Japanese Government’s position that there must be no compromise with terrorism. But this could change dramatically if the three hostages are brutally killed.”

The hostage crisis is a defining moment for the Government of Mr Koizumi, Japan’s most assertive and internationally minded post-war Prime Minister.

When he came to power three years ago, Japan rarely made its presence felt overseas. Mr Koizumi has employed the Self-Defence Forces in ways which would have been unthinkable under his predecessor, and established a warm relationship with George Bush and Tony Blair.

Polls show that his support for the war in Iraq and the dispatch of 550 troops to the Iraqi city of Samawa has divided the Japanese public, although demonstrations have so far have been small and few.

The Government’s fear is that the deaths of the three hostages could galvanise popular opposition to Japan’s involvement in Iraq and bring down Mr Koizumi.

“Japanese have been taken hostage before in countries like the Philippines, but that was for economic reasons, for ransom,” said Koichi Nakano, a lecturer in politics at Tokyo’s Sophia University. “This has happened because of the Government’s policies in Iraq and so it is much easier to place blame.”

まあ、どうやってデータを集計したのかにもよるのだと思うのですが、

一番多いのが、「窓拭きサービス」。
ビルのまだガラスなどや、車の窓のクリーニングと同じものです。
イギリス（多分欧米）では、窓は綺麗にしておく習慣があり、ヨーロッパのほうでは、窓に植物を飾っている光景を見た事があると思います。
窓から洗濯物を干したり、くもの巣が張った状態にしておくと近所から文句が出る（らしい）です。
見苦しい→迷惑と言う理論か？

ただ、この近所の写真のように、実際の二階の窓は高くて簡単には拭く事が出来ません。
家の室内から拭く手もあるけど結構面倒で、危ない。
外からはしごを持って来てというのがいいのですが、我が家にはそのはしごさえありません（笑）
休日で、天気の良い日がこの国には少ない（笑）

と言う事で、お願いしているのが、この「窓拭きサービス」
月1回、8ポンドなのですが、近所の殆どの家が利用しています。
自分でやろうとすると大変な事になると思うのですが、近所を全部順に窓ふきしている人たちは、結構早くやって次の場所に移動しています。
Ｃｏｔｔａｇｅと呼ばれる平屋の家は、別として二階建て以上の殆どの家が利用しているサービスのような気がします。

3分の1の家庭が、家政婦さんを雇っていると言う感じではないと思いますが、
確かに専業主婦の方で、アルバイト代わりに部屋の掃除をしている人もいるようで、
共働きで、子供がいない同僚の一人は、週に一回家の中の掃除を頼んでいるそうです。
そこの家は、かなりぴかぴかの状態のようです。
あと、奥さんが結構高給取りだった記憶があります。

記事では、時給7～12ポンドらしいのですが、ちょっと安い感じです。
この田舎でも、12～１４ポンド位払った記憶があります。もっともこれは１回きりの出張時に滞在したアパートの最後の掃除をお願いしたときの値段でした。２時間もお願いしたら、2ベッドルームのアパートは、すっかり綺麗になりました。

日本で公開されている情報・画像がどの程度かは分かりませんが、こちらのTimes誌のページの引用です。
３人に皆様が、直面している現実を少しでも知っておく必要があると思い引用しました。
こちらのテレビでは、このシーンとともに、女性の悲鳴声も聞こえていたシーンが放映されました。
どうか御無事でいて欲しいです。

記事を読むには登録が必要(忘れていました）なので、全文と写真を引用します。
(kagegeさん連絡ありがとう）

Times Online - World

Rebels hold the world hostage
By Richard Lloyd Parry , Tokyo Correspondent and Tom Baldwin

Militants threaten to burn Japanese alive

THE US-led coalition in Iraq was under unprecedented strain last night after an Islamic militant group threatened to burn alive three kidnapped Japanese civilians unless Tokyo withdrew its troops from the country.
Chilling video footage, broadcast on the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera, showed the two men and one woman being forced to lie on the floor as knives and swords were pointed at their throats.

“Withdraw your forces from our country and go home or we will burn them alive and feed them to the fighters. You have three days,” said the message from the captors.

A British man was also kidnapped, and armed Iraqi fighters seized seven South Korean missionaries and two Palestinian aid workers in a savage new tactic apparently designed to break the will of the coalition’s junior members. A Canadian was also kidnapped.

The two Palestinians, who held Israeli identity cards, were later paraded on Iranian TV and accused of spying for Israel.

The kidnapped Briton was named as Gary Teeley, 37, who was believed to have been working as a civilian contractor on a US base near the southern city of al-Nasiriyah.

The Foreign Office said last night that Mr Teeley was married with five children and had been working as a consultant for a laundry company.

The Koreans were later freed, but the Japanese hostage crisis has the potential to bring down the Government of Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister.

The military contingents of other coalition partners, who had been deliberately deployed in Iraq’s previously peaceful Shia south, have also come under sustained attack.

American soldiers rushed to reinforce Polish and Bulgarian troops in Karbala after they fought all-night gun battles with radical Shia militiamen.

In the Sunni town of Fallujah, where four US contractors were lynched last week, Marines were caught up in ferocious street fighting more intense than any resistance encountered during last year's invasion. The insurgents fired mortars and rocket propelled grenades and staged hit and run raids, only to melt away in alleyways. Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US military leader in Iraq, vowed that the town of al-Kut would be re-taken “imminently” after Ukrainian troops were driven out by Shia gunmen.

Tony Blair discussed the deepening Iraq crisis in a telephone call to President Bush, but Downing Street denied that the Prime Minister had been doing a “ring round” of other coalition leaders to shore up support.

A spokesman insisted that Britain and America remained resolute in the face of the latest violent uprisings, and said Mr Blair would use his visit to Washington next week to underline the coalition’s determination to transfer power to an Iraqi-led adminstration on June 30.

“There will be a united front on this issue,” he said. “The insurgents will not be allowed to knock us off course.”But there were unmistakable signs of alarm among America’s smaller allies in Iraq. Kazakhstan has announced that it will pull its troops out of Iraq next month. South Korea said that its troops had been forced to suspend their humanitarian work. Germany announced the withdrawal of its civilian aid workers.

The kidnapping of the three Japanese creates a particularly acute crisis for Mr Koizumi, who has emerged as one of Mr Bush’s most loyal supporters on Iraq, though a spokesmen insisted last night that Japan would not withdraw its 550 ground troops.

The victims of the kidnap, by a hitherto unknown group calling itself Saraya al-Mujahidin (Mujahideen Brigades), are Soichiro Koriyama, a 32-year-old freelance photographer, Nahoko Takato, a 34-year-old female humanitarian volunteer, and an 18-year -old boy named Noriaki Imai who left school last month. They met in Amman, and were seized on the notoriously dangerous road linking the Jordanian capital with Baghdad.

Mr Koizumi, since dispatching members of the Self-Defence Forces to southern Iraq earlier this year, has been braced for the deaths of his own soldiers. Hours before news of the kidnapping, he insisted that his determination would not be shaken by acts of violence after shells exploded close to the Japanese base in the town of Samawa. But the capture of three civilians, including one who under Japanese law is still a child, will generate a wave of public sympathy and anxiety.

Pulling out the SDF now would irreparably damage Mr Koizumi’s credibility, both domestically and internationally. But if the hostages are killed, the reaction among the Japanese public and Mr Koizumi’s political enemies has the potential to bring down his Government.

Mr Koizumi has been accused of sacrificing principle and self-interest in order to please the United States. Japan’s physical contribution to the coalition effort in Iraq is relatively small, but the support of the world’s second- richest country is symbolically valuable. The fall of Mr Koizumi would deprive Mr Bush and Mr Blair of one of their most stalwart supporters. Much now depends on the Japanese Government’s handling of the crisis and the development of public opinion over the next few days.

“It seems the Government is not considering withdrawing the SDF, but we want them to come home safely,” Shuichi Takato, the younger brother of Nahoko Takato, told The Times last night. “We all know why the Japanese Government sent the SDF to Iraq. Is the big country (the US) so important?”.

The seven South Korean evangelists were abducted at gunpoint yesterday while driving from Amman to Baghdad. An eighth escaped when her Iraqi driver drove off with her still in the car. Her colleagues were freed once they were able to confirm their nationality, and told South Korean news networks that they had been escorted back to Baghdad by their captors. The Seoul Government insisted that the kidnappings would not affect its plans to send 3,600 troops to Iraq. Two Labour MPs last night demanded the recall of Parliament on Monday because of the “dire” situation in Iraq.

以下は記事の記録です。

ニュースで時々聞く、このレジオネラ症細菌感染による肺炎の一種ですが、
シャワーのお湯を循環式にしているのでしょうか？
プールの更衣室等のシャワーに発生しやすいようです。

病院って清潔なようで、一部分は清潔ではないのでしょうか？

循環式浴槽におけるレジオネラ症防止対策マニュアルについて:
レジオネラ症とは

レジオネラ症発生状況:
イングランド，ウェールズ居住者のレジオネラ症発症者数の年次推移（1980～1994）

BBC NEWS | England | Wiltshire | Two die after car and lorry crash

Two people have died following a collision between a car and a lorry near Trowbridge in Wiltshire.

BBC NEWS | England | Wiltshire | Police name crash fatalities

Police have named three people who died in a collision between a car and an articulated lorry in Wiltshire.

よくある事なのでしょうが、現場は、直線の幹線道路に、細い田舎の走路が交差している交差点で、信号もあります。　普通事故が起こるとはあまり思えないのですが、何はともあれ、毎日通っている所なので気をつけねば。

駅で買った新聞は、Western Daily Expressというブリストルで発行している地方新聞だった。

車の中で一人で新聞を読んだと言うより、写真を見た。

時間が止まっていた。

新聞の第1面と、6、7面全面に大きく写されたシーンは、圧倒的な力で何もかも吹き飛ばした感じがした。
気分が悪くなった。
それ以上に、今まで持っていた戦争に対する感覚が吹っ飛んだ感じであった。
子供が笑っていた。

それから２日間ネットの記事を読んだ。
ネットで見る画像はサイズが小さい為か違う印象であった。

色々な疑問等も残る、
米軍は事件を知っていてなぜ救助（遺体の回収）もしなかったのか？

傭兵を多く使った今回のイラク戦争→国の復興は、商業戦争とも言われているようですが、今後このような事件が増えない事とイラクの復興を祈るのみです。

以下は、今回色々読んだ記事の中のいくつかを紹介・記録

バルタザールどこへゆく: 窮鼠猫を噛む

戦争って、本当にリアルでグロテスクなもの。 生身の人間の頭や手足，腸が吹っ飛び、焼け焦げる阿鼻叫喚。 広河隆一氏が述べているように目を逸らしてはならないと思うし、残酷な写真も報道すべきだと思う。 淡々と「どこどこで何人死亡」といったデータだけを垂れ流し、また受け流していては、戦争について観念的にしか捉えられなくなってしまう。 『DAYS JAPAN』を見ながらも、そう痛感した。 そしてそれは、危険極まりない昨今の日本のような事態を招く。

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | 'Horrific' Iraq deaths shock US

The US has condemned the killing and dismembering of four American civilian security contractors in Iraq

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Images from Iraq haunt US

The gruesome images of the bodies of four US civilian contractors being mutilated and lynched in the Iraqi town of Falluja have caused outrage across the US.

All the main television stations began their evening news broadcasts with footage of the attacks in which the Americans were pulled from their burning vehicle, decapitated, and two of the bodies left hanging on a bridge.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Falluja: 'American graveyard'

Looking on as a crowd of cheering Iraqis desecrated the bodies of four civilians killed by insurgents, 12-year-old Mohammad Nafik said: "This is the fate of all Americans who come to Falluja."

はなゆーさんのエントリーはいつも多岐で情報が多いです。

イラクのファルージャで米国人が殺害され遺体は橋に吊り下げさらしものに！ : 低気温のエクスタシーbyはなゆー -北国tv

イラクのファルージャで米国人が殺害され遺体は橋に吊り下げさらしものに！

戦争はビジネスチャンスだ！民間軍事会社の台頭 : 低気温のエクスタシーbyはなゆー -北国tv

つまりは戦争の「民営化」「下請けへの丸投げ（アウトソーシング）」である

はなゆーさんのエントリーに紹介されている、浅井久仁臣（あさいくにおみ）さんのサイトの記事です。

私の視点：ファルージャで「市中引き回し」

ファルージャ近郊では、去年から地対空ミサイルによるヘリコプターへの攻撃で、かなりの犠牲者が出ています。
２００３年１１月２日　大型輸送ヘリコプター　チヌークが墜落。米兵１６人が死亡　２０人が負傷
２００４年１月８日　ブラックホークヘリコプターが墜落。搭乗員９人全員死亡

その前には、米軍によるデモ隊への発砲事件が発生しています。

これが伏線か？ファルージャでは米軍とデモ隊の激しい衝突が起きていた！ : 低気温のエクスタシーbyはなゆー -北国tv

群集が米国人の殺害死体を橋に吊り下げさらしものにしたイラクのファルージャでは一年前に米軍とデモ隊の激しい衝突が起きていた。

Democraｃy Nowのページの訳になっています。

はてなダイアリー - 甘いおやつ

抵抗の温床：あるイラク人の語るファルージャの暴力
この事件がおこったファルージャでは2日前に，米軍が女性や子どもなどを銃撃する正当化できない事件がおこり，大勢が死んでいます．ファルージャは，F-15やF-16の利用による村の攻撃を含めて，米軍がほんとうに残酷な武力を行使したところだったのです．