Among the dead were a 28-year-old Iraqi man, Faiz Harrat al-Majmaee, and his extended family, including five children younger than 5, the U.N. report said. Autopsies done later in the hospital in Tikrit showed that “all the corpses were shot in the head and handcuffed,” Alston noted.
U.S. coalition spokesmen said at the time that there was no wrongdoing and that the commander “properly followed the rules of engagement as he necessarily escalated the use of force until the threat was eliminated.”
U.S. forces captured a Kuwaiti-born al-Qaeda cell leader — Ahmad Abdallah Muhammad Nais al-Utaybi — and killed an Iraqi bombmaker and recruiter during the coordinated raid.
According to the official military account given later, the troops took direct fire from the building upon their arrival. They responded first with small arms and then by calling in helicopters and, later, air support that destroyed the building.
They found the Iraqi bombmaker dead inside, along with 12 others, the account said.
In June of that year, a Pentagon investigation determined that U.S. commanders used appropriate force in taking down what they described as a safe house during the raid.
