Arab Jabour aftermath

An initial report from Al-Hayat says many innocent residents of Arab Jabour who didn't leave following a warning were killed in the bombing, and other innocent residents' homes and lands were destroyed, but on the other hand a local Awakening person said only terrorist hideouts were targeted. The reporter summarizes the state of the question as "murky".

Al-Hayat talked to surviving residents of Arab Jabour, and reports:

Murkiness prevailed respecting the actual results of the American aerial bombing of the agricultural village of Arab Jabour south of Baghdad, with families that escaped affirming that "the attack destroyed homes and farms of people of the area", and according to witnesses the attack led to the death of many residents who didn't leave their homes in response to requests by the Americans, because the time allowed was insufficient.

The journalist then reviews the numbers respecting "targets", the 40,000 ponds of bombs, how long it took (no more than ten minutes), and so on, adding:

Many residents who escaped were unable to return to their homes, but some who did return affirmed the destruction of their homes and agricultural lands, while the American forces and the Iraqi government have released no report on the killed and wounded or on material damage.

Ayad al-Ubeidi, 35, a resident of Arab Jabour, said the American forces did not allow the families in the target area sufficient time to leave, and that led to the killing of many of them. He said the Americans distributed leaflets some hours before the attack, asking residents to leave their homes. However, Saif Salman, a member of the Arab Jabour Awakening, said the Americans asked the area residents to move to a secure area 10 days before the attack, but not all of them were able to do that.

Col. Raed Hasan al-Zubaie, president of the Doura Awakening [adoining this area to the north] said the secure houses were not subject to the American attack, and he added that the military operations throughout Arab Jabour targeted nests of terrorists and AlQaeda groups only. And he said the operations were planned beforehand with the cooperation of officers of the Awakenings in this region.

The journalist reviews the American military spokesperson's boast that this was the biggest single bombing attack since 2003, and the explanation of another to the effect this was necessary because the US military had so long neglected the area. There isn't any mention of the Dec 11 call for families to return to the area, or the Dec 27 celebration of the opening of the security center.

For its part, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq called for international organizations to investigate this attack, which it said has killed "tens of innocent residents including women, children and old people, and wounded a similar number of others", holding the American authorities and the Iraqi government criminally responsible.