A US Marine who appears to shoot and kill an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in an NBC News video was not aware that the incident was being recorded, and moments later approached the cameraman with seemingly remorseful words -- "I didn't know, sir, I didn't know" -- according to the first public description of the events by the cameraman, Kevin Sites, since his brief and somewhat ambiguous initial report.
There were no visible weapons inside the Fallujah mosque where the shooting took place, on Nov. 13, and the wounded Iraqi made no sudden or threatening moves before the Marine shot him, Sites writes on his Web site, kevinsites.net, in an entry posted Sunday night.
Sites, a freelance photojournalist who had been hired by NBC News, made it clear that as a veteran of covering wars around the globe, he understood the ugliness and complexity of battle. Nevertheless, he said of the incident in the mosque, "it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right."
His account also raises new questions about another group of Marines who had entered the mosque just before Sites and fired on the prisoners -- they had been left there, already wounded, after a battle the day before. Sites was so surprised that the prisoners he had seen there the day before had been attacked again that he informed a Marine lieutenant of the fact before the final shooting -- the one he captured on tape -- took place.
The video obtained by Sites has received sensational play around the world, particularly in the Arab news media. Sites calls the posting on his Web log an "Open Letter to the Devil Dogs [a nickname used since World War I, when the Germans dubbed the US Marines teufelhunden] of the 3.1," or the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines.
"Since the shooting in the mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw," he wrote, "or explain the process by which the world came to see them as well."
But despite his attempt to be fair, he said, since the Fallujah video was broadcast on Nov. 15, he has been "shocked to see myself painted as some kind of antiwar activist." Sites has received abuse and death threats on some Web sites, and has shut down the discussion section of his own. He said that the Marines he was embedded with arrived at the mosque on Nov. 13, and after a series of other events, he heard shooting inside. The other set of Marines emerged and were asked by a lieutenant, "Did you shoot them?"
"Roger that, sir," a Marine responded. But when the lieutenant asked, "Were they armed?" the Marine just shrugged, Sites wrote.
He was videotaping some of the wounded men when, in the background, a Marine yelled that one of the others was "faking he's dead."
"Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi," Sites wrote. "There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging."
Then the Marine fired.
"There is a small spatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down," Sites wrote, in what was apparently a suggestion that the man had been alive.
"Well," another Marine said, "he's dead now."
Sites wrote that he could feel "the deep pit of my stomach." The shooting Marine, who had been angrily shouting, suddenly changed his tone.
"The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread," Sites wrote.
"I can't know what was in the mind of the Marine," he wrote. "He is the only one who does."
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
Counting was under way in Nepal yesterday, after a high-stakes parliamentary election to reshape the country’s leadership following protests last year that toppled the government. Key figures vying for power include former Nepalese prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli, rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah, who is bidding for the youth vote, and newly elected Nepali Congress party leader Gagan Thapa. In Kathmandu’s tea shops and city squares, people were glued to their phones, checking results as early trends flashed up — suggesting Shah’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was ahead. Nepalese Election Commission spokesman Prakash Nyupane said the counting was ongoing “in a peaceful manner”
RSS