Mukaradeeb is a small village in Iraq near the Syrian border which was attacked by American helicopters on May 19, 2004, killing 42 men, women and children. The casualties, 11 of whom were women and 14 were children, were confirmed by Hamdi Noor al-Alusi, the manager of the nearest hospital. Western journalists also viewed the bodies of the children before they were buried.

The previous day there had been a wedding party in the village. American military claimed that traditional celebratory gunfire was misinterpreted as an attack on American helicopters. However, this account is disputed since the attack commenced at 3:00 a.m. when most of the guests were asleep. Initially the US military also insisted no children were killed. The location of the village shown in a video is claimed to be incorrect, as the hills in the video background differ from the hills around Mukaradeeb.

One survivor, the 30 year old sister-in-law of the groom, Mrs. Shihab, stated that the American troops inspected the bodies, kicking them to check if they were alive. "I fell into the mud and an American soldier came and kicked me. I pretended to be dead so he wouldn't kill me. My youngest child was alive next to me."

At a press conference, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said “There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration, no gifts. There was no wedding tent.” He produced photographs of rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding and other items and claimed that the lack of identification on the dead demonstrated that “a high-risk meeting of high-level anti-coalition forces” had been underway.

The following day, however, Associated Press Television News (APTN) obtained a copy of a videotape of the wedding celebrations filmed by cameraman Yasser Shawat Abdullah who was hired to record the event. Among the dead were prominent Iraqi musicians Hussein al-Ali and his brother Mohaned al-Ali.

External links

• http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2004/05/19/internacional/1084989203.html
• http://journals.aol.com/bmiller224/OldHickorysWeblog/entries/1295
• http://www.geoffarnold.com/mt-archives/000097.html
• http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/wedd-m27.shtml
• http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2004/05/24/internacional/1085391993.html