Images expose US Marines massacre of civilians in Iraq's Haditha

Disturbing images of the 2005 Haditha Massacre in Iraq have been released following an investigative podcast by a US website, revealing the harrowing nature of the killings carried out by a group of US Marines nearly 20 years ago.

With permission from the families of victims, The New Yorker published images from the massacre's aftermath in the city of Haditha, Al-Anbar province, where at least 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including children, were killed on November 19, 2005, two years into the Iraq war.

The photographs were obtained after the investigative podcast, In the Dark, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Navy, in a bid to uncover what happened on that horrific day.

The images were taken after two other US Marines brought in a camera and a red Sharpie felt tip pen, used to mark the bodies with numbers, The New Yorker said on Tuesday.

Another US Marine also photographed the victims' dead bodies.

The victims, which included men, women, the elderly and children, were shot multiple times at close range. The oldest victim was a 76-year-old man, and the youngest was three years old.

The massacre occurred after a US convoy hit an improvised explosive device (IED) which killed one US Lance Corporal and injured several others.

The incident prompted the US Marines to execute five young Iraqi men in a vehicle soon after, before they entered multiple homes, killing everyone inside.

Among the victims was five-year-old Zainab Younis Salim, who died in bed close to some of her killed relatives. In one of the photographs, the number 11 can be seen scrolled on her body.

Another image showed the body of 40-year-old mother Ayda Yassin Ahmed lying next to her dead children, who were aged three to eight. Only one child survived, Safa, as she hid next to her bed during the shooting.

One Marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, had reportedly admitted that he had shot one of the victims despite recognising they were a child, according to investigative records. Tatum denied ever making that statement, The New Yorker said.

Other images showed blood splattered on bedroom walls and floors where some of the victims were killed. Some victims' bodies were visibly dragged outside after they were killed, as proven by steaks of blood on the home’s floor – shown in another picture.

Other images depicted the body of another mother, Asmaa Salman Raseef, lying head down next to her four-year-old son Abdullah after they were both shot and killed. Abdullah's head can be seen surrounded by a pool of blood, while Asmaa's back is visibly injured.

The first victims of the massacre, the five young men headed to university in Baghdad while driving were also shown. The image showed their bodies lying in the street after they were shot to death, with an obscured US Marine looking on. The men were aged between 19 and 29.

A criminal investigation followed shortly after the massacre; with the Marines claiming they were "fighting insurgents".

Eight people were initially charged in connection with the incident in December 2006. Cases were subsequently dropped with no suspect serving any kind of prison sentence.

The verdict prompted horror, shock and anger among Iraqis, with one of the families’ lawyers calling the outcome "an assault on humanity".

By the time the final case was dismissed in 2012, the US had withdrawn from Iraq, and the incident received little to no media coverage, unlike the horrors of the Abu Ghraib Prison incident.

The New Yorker said one of the involved Marines, General Michael Hagee, had bragged about the images not seeing the light of day "unlike Abu Ghraib", in a 2014 interview.

The Haditha Massacre is one of many horrific war crimes carried out by the US army against Iraqi civilians during the war's period.

The war in Iraq lasted eight years and eight months before US troops officially withdrew in December 2011.

Among those crimes are the Mahmudiyah rape and killing, the Fallujah killings of April 2003 and the Tal Afar shootings of 2005.

Following the war, Iraq has been marred by sectarian insurgency, a four-year-long war combatting the Islamic State group and the renewed presence of US troops, in a bid to fight off IS.

US soldiers officially withdrew for the second time in 2021, though troops remain scattered in the country, triggering discontent and anger among Iraqis.