August 17, 2003

BAGHDAD -- Ezhar Mahmood Ridha and her sister-in-law were on their way to a wake when they met their deaths at the hands of U.S. soldiers.

As their broken-down car stood stranded on a dusty overpass, a guerrilla fighter nearby detonated a huge explosive device at a passing U.S. military convoy. As the soldiers turned and fired, the car carrying the assailant sped away, according to witnesses and U.S. military officials.

The Americans hit the only object left on the overpass: Ridha's blue 1982 Mitsubishi sedan.

Bullets ripped through Ridha's body. She slumped over in the back seat, eyes frozen, as her 6-month-old baby slipped from her arms, witnesses said. Ridha's sister-in-law was hit in the stomach.

The shooting at dusk on Aug. 1 was just one of dozens of cases in which civilians have been caught in the crossfire of Iraq's guerrilla war. The firing was over in minutes and warranted only a five-paragraph statement from the U.S. military public affairs office in Iraq.

But the tragedy and its aftermath reveal much about the chaotic, unpredictable nature of combat here and how the deaths of civilians can turn residents of an entire village, once sympathetic to the U.S. occupation, into bitter enemies.

For each civilian killed--neither Iraqi nor American officials have attempted to keep count of the mounting casualty toll--a new circle of family, friends and tribespeople learns to revile the U.S. soldiers who came to liberate them.