US soldiers probably killed taxi passengers

A senior US army officer acknowledged today it was “likely” that coalition forces shot and killed four Iraqi civilians in a taxi, including a seven-year-old boy.

A preliminary inquiry into the shooting has been completed and a report sent to the military headquarters in Baghdad, indicating the use of heavy calibre machine gun fire in the January 3 attack, said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell, a local commander in Tikrit.

Russell suggested anti-coalition insurgents were not involved, saying they could not have concealed a high calibre weapon from his soldiers on one of Tikrit’s roads.

But none of the US troops in the area reported the shooting as required by military regulations.

Lieutenant Colonel Dan Williams, a military spokesman, said Monday that if an American soldier did the shooting and did not report it, “that was wrong.”

“If that is the case, military justice will be done and it will be done quickly,” he said, adding that a military lawyer from the Judge Advocate General’s corps is also involved in the probe.

The taxi driver, Ibrahim Allawi, said he was driving four passengers when he was caught behind a convoy of four Humvees.

He said soldiers in the last Humvee directed him to pass the convoy. When he had nearly cleared all the vehicles, machine gun fire struck his taxi, killing the four passengers.