1 Collateral Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen makes his way through the al-Amin neighbourhood in eastern Baghdad looking for a story. In the mid-morning summer heat, raw sewerage leaks from broken pipes. Tangled electricity wires provide a few hours of power a day to Iraqi families behind their cracked mud-brick walls and metal gates. It''s 12 July 2007, the height of the Iraq War. Namir is a combat photographer for Reuters, the international news agency, and a veteran of the conflict at 22. He''s checking out reports of a US air strike at dawn on a building in al-Amin''s urban sprawl. With him is driver Saeed Chmagh, a 40-year-old father of four who knows the area well. At 10.
10 am, Namir gets in an abandoned car off an alleyway to photograph two women wearing traditional black garments and headscarfs walking towards a bullet hole in the wind screen. Who fired the shot is unknown. One woman, her arms outstretched, appears to be pleading with Namir. Her face is heavy with weariness. Below her palms, taking up the bottom half of the photo, is the bullet hole and cracked glass. The other woman''s face is obscured. The woman with her arms extended looks like she is in mourning. In Iraq, every woman has lost someone to the war: a son, a daughter, a husband, a relative.
Namir and Saeed can''t see or hear the two American AH-64 Apache helicopters prowling above the sand-coloured maze of al-Amin. A US infantry battalion searching for militias called them in after reports of sniper fire, gunmen on rooftops and rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attacks on some of its soldiers. One of the Apaches has the call-sign Crazy Horse 1-8. I''m in the Reuters office, a twenty-minute drive away. It''s been more than four years since President George W. Bush ousted Saddam Hussein and then, with wilful neglect, left the people of Iraq open to unimaginable horror. The previous weekend I wrote stories about suicide bombers and sectarian death squads who killed 250 people across Iraq. As bureau chief of the largest foreign news organisation in Baghdad, I fear for the safety of my staff more than anything.
The Cradle of Civilisation is the most dangerous country on earth, ancient Baghdad the epicentre of this hellscape. Suicide bombers on foot, in cars and trucks, detonate themselves and their vehicles on the streets and in marketplaces every day. Some attacks rattle our office windows. Dozens of bodies are found each morning by roadsides, in ditches or in the Tigris River that winds through the city. Reuters covers the war from a two-storey house the company has rented since Saddam''s downfall. We employ nearly 100 Iraqi journalists and support staff across the country. Seven or eight foreigners and fifteen Iraqis sleep in three nearby houses, the windows padded with sandbags. The Iraqis have moved in over the years because their lives have been threatened or their neigh bourhoods are too dangerous.
Some have sent their families across the border to Syria or Jordan. Concrete blast walls 3.5 metres high surround each house. Iraqi guards with AK-47 assault rifles are posted at metal gates built into each wall and checkpoints at either end of the street. The New York Times, the BBC and the Associated Press news agency rent houses near us and are similarly protected. Our defacto media compound is located on the eastern side of the Tigris, which splits Baghdad roughly in half. We are in the so-called Red Zone, the name for the city outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, an enclave for Iraq''s fractured leadership, the American embassy and the head quarters of the US military. I can see most of the office from where I sit on the ground floor.
I''m unaware of Namir''s whereabouts, which is routine. I trust my senior TV and pictures staff. If they had to get my approval for every movement, we''d never report anything. A diesel-fuelled generator the size of a small truck rumbles from the yard outside, an incessant reminder that electricity is precious in Baghdad. It can hit 50 degrees Celsius in summer: crushing, life-sapping heat. A low hum of noise rises from the city, one of the largest in the Arab world, home to 6-7 million people. Outside my window, minarets pierce the skyline. Satellite dishes, banned under Saddam, dot the flat roofs of houses and build ings.
Leaves from an occasional date palm add a dash of colour to an otherwise yellow dullness. At 10.19 am Namir and Saeed join a dozen men along a street where a flat-bed trailer and other vehicles are parked in an open square filled with rubbish. The Apache helicopters spot the group using powerful optics technology. An onboard camera records every step the men on the ground take. A few are carrying AK-47s and what looks like an RPG launcher, all pointed down. The men walk casually. Namir and Saeed are not wearing flak jackets with PRESS markings or protective helmets because al-Qaeda and other militant groups deliberately kidnap and kill journalists.
Namir walks ahead with an unarmed man towards a walled compound on a street corner. The man gestures, like he wants to show Namir something. Apaches resemble war machines from the Terminator movies. Just rotors and weapons. An M230 chain gun loaded with 30mm armour-piercing rounds swivels between the main landing gear. An Apache has a two-man crew, a pilot and gunner. ''Hotel 2-6, Crazy Horse 1-8. Have five to six individuals with AK-47s.
Request permission to engage,'' says the Crazy Horse 1-8 gunner in a matter-of-fact voice, using the call-sign of the infantry battalion below. ''Roger that. Uh. We have no personnel east of our position. So, uh, you are free to engage, over,'' comes the reply. Engage means attack, kill. Houses block Crazy Horse 1-8''s line of sight. It will have to do a loop.
About twenty seconds later, Namir peers around the street corner with his long-lens camera raised. Crouched down, he takes four photographs of US Humvees from the battalion crossing the road, about 100 metres away. ''He''s got an RPG,'' the Crazy Horse 1-8 gunner says, agitated now. Namir rejoins the men as they walk back in the direction they came. Saeed is a little further ahead, talking on his phone. Crazy Horse 1-8 needs another 40 seconds to get in position. ''Light ''em all up!'' says the pilot. The chain gun explodes into life at 10.
21 am. While it can Line in the Sand_1st pages-NEW.indd 6 13/3/2023 12:06 pm 7 Line in the Sand shoot 300 rounds a minute, the gunner fires several short bursts. The rounds are the size of a small soft-drink bottle, the length of a man''s hand, and fragment on impact. Most of the men fall to the ground in clouds of dust. Namir reacts more quickly than the others, fleeing to his left. The gunner tracks Namir as he runs, bent over, across a large pile of garbage. He drops into the waste, prob ably hit.
He looks up in the direction of the fusillade. Maybe he sees the helicopter in those last seconds before his body shudders off the ground from more shells and disappears in dirt and rubbish. Saeed also gets away initially and is moving fast along a walled compound, trying to use it for cover. Crazy Horse 1-8 spots Saeed and opens fire. He too is shrouded in dust. The Apache shoots again at the main group of bodies. ''Oh, yeah, look at those dead bastards,'' says the gunner. ''Nice,'' replies the pilot.
All the men are dead, except Saeed, lying near a kerb. For three minutes he tries to get up and crawl, but his left leg is badly wounded. The crew want to finish him off. ''Come on, buddy,'' says the pilot. ''All you gotta do is pick up a weapon,'' adds the gunner. A faded turquoise minivan stops next to Saeed at 10.26 am. Driver Saleh Matasher Tomal, 43, is unarmed.
Inside are his son Sayad, ten, and daughter Doaha, five. Tomal is taking them to school. The crew tells the ground unit the van is ''possibly'' picking up bodies and weapons and requests permission to attack again. Tomal gets out and opens the side cargo door. Two other men arrive and grab Saeed. They appear to be unarmed bystanders. ''Come on, let us shoot!'' says the gunner. The two bystanders put Saeed in the van.
Permission to attack is granted at 10.27 am. Crazy Horse 1-8 fires several bursts, 120 rounds in total. ''Oh yeah, look at that. Right through the windshield! Haha!'' says the gunner. It''s 10.29 am. Saeed and Tomal are dead, and probably the other men as well.
Troops from the infantry battalion arrive several minutes later. At 10.35 am, one soldier says: ''I''ve got, uh, eleven Iraqi KIAs [killed in action]. One small child wounded. Over.'' ''Roger, we need, we need, uh, to evac [evacuate] this child. Ah, she''s got a, uh, she''s got a wound to the belly,'' says another. ''Well, it''s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle,'' says the Crazy Horse 1-8 gunner.
''That''s right,'' replies the pilot. Both of Tomal''s children are wounded but survive. I''m sitting at t.