US Marines massacre of Iraqi civilians revealed in gruesome photos – Middle East Monitor
▻https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240829-us-marines-massacre-of-iraqi-civilians-revealed-in-grues
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-52263103-e1724920371414.jpg The massacre in question took place in Haditha, Iraq, on 19 November 2005. US Marines killed 24 Iraqi men, women and children in three homes, and shot five men driving to their Baghdad college. The youngest victim was a three-year-old girl; the oldest was a seventy-six-year-old man. The resultant war-crime investigation has been one of the longest in American history.
One US Marine was killed nearby in an IED explosion just hours earlier; two other marines were wounded. As a result, the Marine Corps argued during legal proceedings that they had simply been responding to and fighting Iraqi insurgents that day. Despite all of those who were killed being civilians, the four marines who were charged with murder later had the charges dropped, and the case ended in a plea deal without a prison sentence being imposed.