The US military said yesterday it is investigating a shooting incident near Fallujah last month that led to 19 private security contractors, including 16 Americans, being detained by Marines.
US Marines said the contractors were held for three days after firing on Iraqis and Marines in western Iraq, the military said. No casualties were caused.
Several thousand US Marines are based in Fallujah, a tense city 65km west of Baghdad that was long linked with Iraq's raging insurgency and was the scene of a major US-led offensive in November.
The circumstances surrounding last month's shootings involving 16 American security contractors and three Iraqis are unclear. They were detained May 28 after Iraqi civilians and US Marines were fired at in separate incidents over a three-hour period. US Marines released the contractors May 31.
"Nineteen employees working for a contract security firm in Iraq were temporarily detained and questioned after firing on US Marine positions in the city of Fallujah on Saturday," according to Marine Lieutenant Colonel Dave Lapan.
Lapan said in a statement that a Marine combat team reported receiving small arms fire from gunman in several late-model trucks and sport utility vehicles.
"Marines also witnessed passengers in the vehicles firing at and near civilian cars on the street," Lapan said.
"Three hours later, another Marine observation post was fired on by gunmen from vehicles matching the description of those involved in the earlier attack," Lapan said. "Marines saw passengers in the vehicles firing out the windows."
Spike strips on the road at a nearby observation post stopped the vehicles and Marines detained the contractors at a military detention facility at Camp Fallujah, just outside the city, before releasing them three days later.
The American security contractors are thought to have left Iraq, the military said. No charges have been laid pending the completion of an inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
The insecurity in Iraq has spawned a thriving private security industry comprising Iraqis and former military personnel from military forces around the world.
Many Iraqis refer to the security personnel, who speed along Iraqi highways in vehicles bristling with automatic weapons, as mercenaries, although many senior government officials use them for their own personal protection.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
Burmese President Min Aung Hlaing yesterday cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth, a blanket measure that a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention. Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear. “We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government
RSS