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The July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrikes were a series of air-to-ground attacks conducted by a team of two US AH-64 Apache helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, New Baghdad during the Iraqi insurgency which followed the Iraq War. The attacks received worldwide coverage following the leaking of 39 minutes of classified gunsight footage in 2010, provoking ongoing global discussion on the legality and morality of the attacks. In the first strike, the crews of two Apaches directed 30mm cannon fire at a group of ten Iraqi men standing at a position (intersection) insurgents had previously used to shoot an American Humvee with small arms fire. Among the group were two Iraqi war correspondents working for Reuters, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. Namir accomplished his objective with three photos of the Humvee which included the large dirt pile used as cover by insurgents to attack the Humvee earlier that morning. Seven men (including Noor-Eldeen) were killed during this first strike, and Saeed Chmagh was injured. The second strike, also using 30 mm rounds, was directed at a van whose driver, Saleh Matasher Tomal, appeared to happen to drive by and who proceeded to help the wounded Chmagh. However, in the long version of the video this van was targeted prior to the first engagement by one Apache (Crazyhorse 1/8) as it traveled south toward the Reuters employees who were, simultaneously, targeted by the other Apache (Crazyhorse 1/9) as they walked north on the same road toward the van. Minutes after the first engagement ended the van returned traveling in an opposite direction (north) once again on this same road. Two men assisting in the rescue effort were from a group of five standing at an intersection - seen in the upper right corner of the video when the Reuters employees arrive in the courtyard - reported to Apaches as being a second position combatants were using to attack the Humvee. Both of these men, Chmagh and Tomal, were killed in the second strike, and two of Tomal’s children were badly wounded. In a third strike Apache pilots watched people flee into a building and engaged that building with several AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. Reuters had unsuccessfully requested the footage of the airstrikes under the Freedom of Information Act in 2007. The footage was acquired from an undisclosed source in 2009 by the leaks website WikiLeaks, which released the footage on April 5, 2010 under the name ''Collateral Murder''. Recorded from the gunsight Target Acquisition and Designation System of one of the attacking helicopters, the video shows the incident and the radio chatter between the aircrews and ground units involved. An anonymous U.S. military official confirmed the authenticity of the footage.〔 == Context == According to Tom Cohen, a reporter at CNN, "the soldiers of Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry had been under fire all morning from rocket-propelled grenades and small arms on the first day of Operation Ilaaj in Baghdad".〔 Al Jazeera stated that the Army had received "reports of small arms fire", but were unable to positively identify the gunmen. Apache helicopters were called in by a soldier in the Humvee (Hotel 2-6) under attack from the same position used by Namir Noor-Eldeen to photograph the vehicle.〔 According to a military review, soldiers in that company "had been under sporadic small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire since" the operation—described as "clearing their sector and looking for weapons caches"—began.〔 The Air Weapons Team (AWT) of two Apache AH-64s from the 1st Cavalry Division had been requested by the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment (2-16), 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, before July 12 to support Operation Ilaaj. Tasked to conduct escort, armed reconnaissance patrols, counter-IED and counter-mortar operations, the two helicopters left Camp Taji at 9:24am. They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9:53am, where sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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