In The Dark - Episode 4: What They Saw

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Two conflicting stories about what happened that day emerge—one from the Marines involved in the killings, and another from a very different perspective.  To get episodes early and ad-free, visit newyorker.com/dark. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Previously on In the Dark. In the morning of 19th November 2005, American soldiers had executed three families. And they come back. Yeah, there was about 24 bodies in the back of the vehicles, and I'm like, holy fuck, man. Maybe a lot of this is imagination, and none of this was near as bad as it seemed.

I'm talking about what actually happened to the civilians. What he noticed was gunshots. Most of them, a gunshot in the head or in the chest. Shots, yes. They died this way. To me, they were enemy combatants. Were they 100% enemy combatants? I don't know. They lost one of the most loved

guys in the company. In their eyes, you know, it's justified. Not in my eyes. In your eyes, what would that be? Sounds like murder, right? There were six Marines involved in the shootings at the White Car and in the houses on November 19, 2005, in Haditha. You don't have to keep track of all of them now, but I want to tell you a little bit about them. The leader of the squad was Sergeant Frank Wuderich.

Wuderich was from Connecticut. He'd been an honor roll student and a theater guy in high school. There's a picture of him in his local paper, rehearsing a lead role for a performance of Our Town. Wuderich had signed up for the Marines when he was 17, so young that his parents had to co-sign his enlistment papers. He later said he chose the Marines because it was prestigious. Wuderich was now 25.

He'd never been to war before, but most of the Marines we spoke with described him as a good squad leader, level-headed and reserved. Like he was quiet, but a good dude. Then there was Corporal Hector Salinas, who was Wuderich's right-hand man. Salinas is definitely salty as fuck, and I mean this in a good way. I mean, he was experienced and definitely would probably have not taken any shit over there. One of the most junior members of the squad was Private First Class Humberto Mendoza. Mendoza. What was he like? Um, pretty quiet, I guess. Yeah. Never gave us a hard time. He did what I was told.

Then there was Corporal Sonic Dela Cruz. Haditha was his third deployment to Iraq. That dude loved the Marine Corps. Whenever you would talk to him about it, he would be really intense about it. He's like, yeah, fucking damn, this is the Marine Corps. I love this place. Out of all the Marines involved in the shootings, the one that people remembered the most was a Lance

Corporal named Justin Sherritt, the squad's gunner. Sherritt was a veteran of the Battle of Fallujah, the one who sometimes wore a patch that said Punisher. He was just a cool guy. He was that cool guy that you wanted to hang out with. What did he like to do for fun?

Well, fuck, I wasn't dating him. I mean, shit. Oh, my God. Sherrod was, he was a goofball. He was very much into the pop punk. So, like, the Sum 41, Blink 182. Like, that was his shtick. He loved that stuff. He was always that one guy,

if someone was having a bad day, he'd come in, do something really, really stupid, and then you forget you're having a bad day. He had strapped, like, a mattress to the front of himself, and then you forget you're having a bad day. He had strapped, like, a mattress to the front of himself and the back of himself and jumped off a third story. What? Yeah, so he would do stuff like that. Or like this contest that Sherratt challenged some Marine buddies to one day.

Check it out. Antimima fucking syrup drinking contest. A syrup drinking contest. Found this video on Sherratt's YouTube. You guys ready to do it? On the count of three, tap together and we roll. One, two, three, go! Yeah! Chug! Chug!

Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! And then, there was Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, a tall, lanky Marine from Oklahoma, also a Fallujah veteran.

We asked so many people about him, and almost no one could remember a single thing, which was odd to me, given what I would end up learning later about Tatum's role in the killings. Winter producer Raymond Tungakar asked a Marine named Joshua Palmer about Tatum. What kind of guy was he? It took Palmer a really... He was...

Really... I'm trying to remember back. Give me a second. Really... He was very... He was... Long time to come up with anything. He wasn't really a dick. I liked him.

These six men were all pretty different, but they would forever be connected by their actions on November 19, 2005. After the killings later that night, these six Marines returned to their base at the school. By some accounts, the mood was somber. They just lost their friend and squadmate, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. Captain Lucas McConnell gathered his Marines and told them to keep their heads up, that they'd done the right thing that day. No one seemed to ask the six Marines many questions about the other people killed that day,

the 24 men, women, and children. And then, as best I can tell, the six Marines just continued their deployment. Life for the Marines in Haditha really didn't seem to change. They kept patrolling, searching houses, hanging out at the base. But then one day, three months after the killings, in February 2006, an army colonel showed up in Haditha

and asked to speak to the six marines. The colonel's name was Gregory Watt, and he was heading the military's first investigation into what had happened in Haditha. He'd been sent in after military higher-ups saw the video with the footage that Khaled Salman Rasif had had filmed, the video that suggested that something very wrong had happened. Now, these six Marines were being brought one by one into a room

to tell Colonel Watt their story of what had happened on November 19th. their story of what had happened on November 19th. This is season three of In the Dark, an investigative podcast from The New Yorker. This season is about the killing of 24 men, women, and children by U.S. Marines in Haditha, Iraq. It's a story not just about the killings themselves, but also about the failure of the U.S. military to bring the men responsible for them to justice. Episode 4, What They Saw. Gregory Watt, the man who headed the first investigation

into what happened in Haditha, is retired now. As far as I know, he's never given an interview about what the six Marines told him. I couldn't find a solid phone number for him. So I decided to just drive to his house to see if he would talk to me. All right. So I'm on my way to interview Gregory Watt. And I am going on a little bit of a road trip. Driving to Watt's house turned out to be more difficult than I expected. He lives in a really remote part of West Virginia.

So remote, my phone stopped working. I have little to no phone service. My maps were wrong. Yeah, I don't know about this. Some of the roads weren't really roads. Excuse me, ma'am. I'm sorry to bother you. I think I might be lost. A woman walking down the street gestured to a hill, told me to go that way. Once they named all these places anymore, I don't know how... After nearly nine hours of this, finally... Aha, I found it.

around it. Hello? Hi. Hi. I'm looking for Mr. Watt. That's my husband. Oh, hi. My name is Madeline. I'm a reporter and I'm doing a project. After all that. No, he might be here next week. Watt wasn't home. Oh, okay. Shoot. Yeah. Okay. Can I leave my card? Sure. I'll give him your card and he'll give you a call. Okay. That sounds great. Yeah, thank you. He'll give you a call. Thanks so much. One of my least favorite phrases to hear as a reporter.

Have a good day. You too. Well, that was disappointing. But a few weeks later, I got a voicemail. Hey, Ms. Barron. This is Greg Watt, and I'm returning your call. I believe I heard you that professional courtesy since you attempted to track me down in pretty rural West Virginia.

I will share with you, though, that I am not a fan of the New Yorker or investigative journalism, so I'm probably really not interested in your project. However, I will listen to you if you want to engage me once again. Anyway, thank you. again. Anyway, thank you. Okay, I am going to call back Colonel Watt, who just left me a voicemail. Sounds like he doesn't like The New Yorker, where I work, and he doesn't like investigative reporters, which is what I am. So here we go. Here we go. Hello.

Hi, Mr. Watt. Yes, speaking. Hi, this is Madeline Barron calling you back. Hi, how are you doing today? Good. How about you? Good. Great. The reason why I drove out there to talk to you is that I'm working on a project that looks at the Haditha case. I wanted to talk to Watt about his investigation, but despite being impressed by the lengths I'd gone to find him, he was, as don't know what's to be gained by this investigative journalism.

I mean, what band-aids do you want to rip off? I mean, this is pretty hurtful in the first place. Lots of people's careers were destroyed as a result of this. You know, and I will tell you, you know, quite frankly, you know, it bothers me that Americans either misbehaved or, you know, conducted themselves outside the rules of engagement, potentially. But, you know, in the long run, today, it doesn't make a difference. Gregory Watt, the man who was the first to investigate this alleged war crime, was telling me that none of this really matters anymore.

What he talked about instead was this whole other thing. And I will tell you, because this isn't the first time that I have observed Iraqis that were killed in combat, and the family was more interested in the salatial payments. Watt was talking about the payments that the military made to the families of the dead, the money that Khalid had collected for his relatives, $2,500 for each person who'd been killed. Their values are not the same as yours and mine, Madeline. So that just leads to my hesitancy, you know, to continue this conversation. But talking about like the people whose family members were killed, are you saying that they're

kind of in it for the money? Is that what you're saying? No, not at all. They're incredibly distraught, just like you or I would be if any one of our family members were killed. Yeah, I mean, I feel like you asked earlier kind of like what difference does it make? I think probably it does still make a difference. It definitely does still make a difference to the survivors of the people who were killed that day. It may. I'm not going to debate that fact with you. You know, my experience leads me to believe that this occurred 2006, 2007.

No, it's now 2023. I think they've moved on. Why do you think that? I think it's human nature. Even if your whole family was killed? I believe so, especially in that region of the world. What do you mean? They have different values than we do, okay? They're more concerned about the living than those that have passed. I think to the, I've talked to some of the survivors, and for them it's really important to know as much as possible about how their family members were killed, and then also why no one was ever punished. I don't have the answers to that.

So that was Watt on the Iraqis. But when Watt talked about the six Marines who were involved in the killings, the people he was in charge of investigating, he was more sympathetic. They were all young Marines. They were all professional. They were all, you know, they did their best to present themselves. I mean, Madeline, these are all young kids. really transpired in Haditha was the outcome of a Marine convoy being ambushed and Marines being killed. Those kids, their emotions were high. Their fear was high. You know, our general population who hasn't had to live or operate like that does not understand that. You know, it's just, war is a very complex and confusing thing. It was for those young Marines that day, and it is still today.

You know, it's not neat and clean like our general population and your readers want it to be. And, you know, frankly, I believe I gave the Marines the benefit of the doubt every opportunity that I could. And I mean, the court standings are the final results. Do you think this, though, crossed a line? You know, my opinion doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, did you think that a war crime had been committed? I don't have any opinion on that.

As for what the six Marines had actually told Watt about what happened that day, Watt didn't want to get into that. The whole ripping off the Band-Aid thing. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to rely on Watt's willingness to talk about the past. Because I had the actual statements the Marines had given to him all those years ago. We'd gotten them from one of our lawsuits against the military. There were six of these statements, one from each shooter. They were short, typed up, each one signed by the Marine who gave it.

And these statements offered the very first accounts from the shooters themselves of what had happened that day. What they said after the break. This season almost didn't happen, but we were able to report season three to its conclusion and bring it to you because we joined The New Yorker. At In the Dark, we believe that investigative reporting can lead to real change. That's why I'm asking you to become a New Yorker subscriber. The New Yorker brings you not just in the dark, but amazing nonfiction stories from the best writers and journalists working today. People like Rachel Aviv, Patrick Radden Keith, and Ronan Farrow. The New Yorker relies on subscribers. You literally make our work possible. So please go to newyorker.com slash dark and

become a subscriber today. A subscription starts at just a dollar a week, and it gives you unlimited access to everything The New Yorker publishes. And, of course, you get a tote bag. That's newyorker.com slash dark. The story that the Marines told to Colonel Watt is vague and a bit contradictory. Not everyone describes things the same way. There's a lot left unresolved in these statements. Perhaps in part because it doesn't seem that Watt grilled these Marines all that hard.

Watt himself even later testified that his approach was grandfatherly. And Watt was at a bit of a disadvantage, because he didn't have access to any of the photos that had been taken after the killings. He said he'd actually been told the photos had been destroyed. But in general, the account of the six Marines goes like this. What the Marines told Colonel Watt was that they were under attack that day. They had to fight their way from one house to another to find and kill the enemy. It started when the IED exploded and killed their fellow Marine, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. Close to the site of the explosion, there was a white car on the road. The Marines had motioned to the car to pull over, and it did. But then the men inside got out. Some of the Marines said the men started running, so the Marines shot them.

While all that was happening, the Marines were also starting to take fire, maybe from a house overlooking the road. So the squad leader, Sergeant Wuderich, and several of his men headed to that house. On the way, Wuderich told them, shoot first, ask questions later. They went into that house and heard the sounds of AK-47s racking, and the Marines opened fire on insurgents inside. Someone ran out of the house, so the Marines chased him to another house, but the Marines were taking fire from that house, too. Some of them went inside.

One Marine told Watt it was dusty in there and hard to see. They shot more people and left. And then, according to one of the Marines, some of the men went back to the first house. They thought they hadn't finished clearing it the first time. They went inside and threw a grenade and fired into one of the rooms and saw the bodies of dead insurgents lying on the ground. Then a break. The Marines went up on a rooftop to survey the area.

A moment of relative quiet. But then, according to one of the Marines, they started getting fired on again, this time from yet another house. Some of them ran over to check it out. They went inside a house and were confronted by four insurgents. One of the insurgents was pointing an AK-47 right at them. A Marine fired at the insurgents and killed them all. So much combat.

So many dead insurgents. What none of the Marines mentioned in any of their statements to Colonel Watt was shooting women or children. Instead, what they described sounded like an epic fight, a multi-hour battle against insurgents who were attacking them at nearly every turn. That's what the Marines said happened. Colonel Watt did recommend that the military bring in criminal investigators to look into the incident further, and he recommended that the Marines get some more training.

But he seemed to mostly accept what the Marines were telling him. And this version of events might have been the only version that anyone ever heard, except for one very important fact. Something I haven't mentioned yet. The Marines weren't the only ones who could describe what happened that day. There were witnesses. I want to go back to Khaled Salman Rasif on the day after the killings. He's brought the bodies of his family back home and buried them. Fifteen people from his family alone. But two people are missing, Khaled's niece, Iman, and his nephew, Abdul Rahman, two of his sister

Asma's kids. I asked myself, where is Iman? Where is Abdul Rahman? Where is they? Khaled figured their bodies had been destroyed in a fire that had started in Asma's house that day. And we thought, Iman, Abdulrahman, there is no bodies because they burnt. So you thought they were dead? Yes. Yes, we thought that. The family brought the dead back from the hospital and buried them. Afterward, when Khaled and his family were gathered to mourn,

a man came up to him. The man said that he'd been arrested by the Marines the day of the killings. While he was being held at the base, he'd heard two children, a boy and a girl, two kids, and they're crying. Crying, as they were loaded onto an American helicopter. And were you thinking at that point, maybe those children are Iman and Abdulrahman?

They felt the first spark of hope that they were, the children were still alive. It was like a spark of hope came back to the family. He had to go to see if the children is really Iman and Abdulrahman. Khaled took off running to the American base. When he got there, he found an Iraqi guard posted on the rooftop. Khaled called up to him. Hey, hey, can I talk with you? He said, no, go, go.

Can I talk with you? He said, no, go, go. And I told him, please, can I talk with anyone from America? I am from the families they killed yesterday. Please, can you receive someone to talk to him? An American Marine and his Iraqi interpreter came down to speak with Khaled. The Marine was Major Dana Hyatt, the civil affairs officer for the battalion, the guy whose job it was to win over Iraqi hearts and minds. Khalid said this was actually the first time the two of them had met. And I told them, I am Khalid Salman,

I am a member from city council. I'm a lawyer, I'm a member of the city council. Major Hayat said, oh, city council, where are you? Why you don't working? I told him, please, I don't coming to discuss this for you. Khaled said to Hayat, forget about the council. I'm here to talk about something else. I am coming to asking when the American forces killed my families, we lost two kids. Two kids, Khaled told Hyatt, a girl and a boy. He said, yes, they injured. Yes, Hyatt said, those were the kids that had been at the base. They'd been injured in the attack and flown out to a hospital in Baghdad for treatment, but they were alive. and flown out to a hospital in Baghdad for treatment.

But they were alive. The children's aunt, who lived in Baghdad, went to the hospital and found both kids there. Their relatives brought them back to Haditha, and they reunited with what was left of their family. Abdul Rahman and Aman weren't the only people who survived the killings inside the houses that day. There were three others, five survivors in total, one of whom was just a baby. These people were survivors of a tragedy, but they were also something else.

They were eyewitnesses. They'd seen their family, their parents, their brothers and sisters, shot to death. They'd seen what the Marines had done. I had no idea if they would want to talk about what happened, but I figured the least I could do was ask. I wanted to go to Haditha myself to try to talk to the survivors, but when we consulted with security experts, they said it would be too risky because an American woman traveling on the long road to Haditha would be at high risk of kidnapping. And even getting to Haditha was difficult and required expertise.

So we knew we would need to send someone else, someone who could travel there more safely, someone with experience navigating the roads and handling the security situation in Iraq. Hello. Hi, great to see you. Thank you very much. Can you hear me? Yeah. Can you hear us okay? Yes. His name is Namak Khoshnao. Yeah, so it's Namak Khoshnao. It's a K-H-M-I-S-K-H. I don't know if you can try to pronounce it. Namak is a documentary filmmaker with the BBC. He was born in Kurdistan, but he lives in London now. I'm Kurdish, but I'm from Iraq. So for me, I'm Iraqi. Even though I love Britain, I always see myself as a guest here.

So I always think of going back. I first heard of Namak when I watched an incredibly beautiful documentary he made called Iraq, A State of Mind. It's about how Iraqis are struggling to deal with the trauma of years of war. If we were going to try to talk to people who'd witnessed some of the worst violence imaginable, the deaths of their own parents, I wanted to be sure that the person we worked with had experience with those kinds of situations. And Namak definitely did. When I explained the story to Namak to see if he was interested, the fact that so much time has passed, nobody's talked to him about this.

Right away, he was on board. I mean, that could be interesting investigation bit for us to go and find out. You know, I always think that this could have been me. What if this was my brother or my sister or somebody else? So the way I see it is that even though I have never met those people, I'm very well connected to them. Namak gathered a small crew, and in March of 2022, he got on a plane and flew to Baghdad on his way to try to interview the survivors. We have just arrived in Baghdad airport.

It's quarter to nine local time. He was picked up outside the airport by a security advisor. How are you? Well, we survived. Inshallah. Inshallah. Inshallah. Inshallah.

Inshallah. Inshallah. Inshallah. At a team meeting the next morning, they went over the plan to drive to Haditha. Okay, so it's a team brief. Everybody's here. I'm laughing because there's a lot of smoke here. The four of you guys smoking, it's a little bit off the window or it's tearing the fan or something. So the first thing I want to tell you is that my mother said,

you do not let me get killed. Inshallah. So what do we expect? What are the threats? The security advisor reviewed the threats. Right, so sleeping cells. Sleeper cells. Militias. The militias and the ISIS, the IEDs.

Roadside IEDs. The mortars or rockets. So can you keep us safe of all this? Of course. Great. We're going to leave it here. So inshallah, tomorrow we will make our way. The next day, Namak and his crew, the security advisor, two drivers, a sound guy, and because Namak's native language is actually Kurdish, an interpreter named Haider Ahmed, all set out. We are on our way to Haditha. The road from Baghdad to Haditha is long.

It passes through towns still scarred by years of war. So 15, 20 minutes ago we passed Fallujah, and now we are in Romadi. And the houses are still damaged. Different sections of the road are controlled by different militias. And you need a military escort to move from sector to sector. We've been escorted by a military pickup with two gentlemen. There are checkpoints everywhere. Checkpoint number what, five, six, already?

No, it's not. There's another one coming now, look. There are checkpoints everywhere. At one checkpoint, the guards the drive, Namak wore a hat. Finally, after more than eight hours, Namak and his team reached Haditha. You can't just drive into Haditha. The entrance to the city is controlled, predictably, by a checkpoint. There are soldiers with machine guns, and guards with bomb-sniffing dogs checking cars for explosives. This tight security is a holdover from the years when Haditha was trying to keep out insurgents, and later trying to keep out ISIS. Back in 2014, years after the Marines had left,

ISIS swept through the region. The group took over almost all of Anbar province, but not Haditha. Haditha residents fought back. They killed any ISIS members they could find in the city. And they essentially walled Haditha off. They dug trenches around the perimeter and blocked the roads. To get into the city, you had to be escorted in by a trusted resident of Haditha who could vouch for you. And that's still the case today. We're held outside of Haditha checkpoint. We're waiting as we need to make a reference. So Namak and his team were waiting at the checkpoint for the person who would be vouching for them. And here he is. That person was Khaled Salman Rasif.

Khaled showed up, as he always did, wearing a suit. Namak later told me that when he first met Khaled, he felt kind of silly because he was so disheveled from the long drive. Khaled was so put together. Khaled drove Namak around town. It's a beautiful district. A lot of palm trees. Is it famous for palm trees, this place? Yes, yes.

Showed him Haditha. It is good? It's very good. Took him to his yes. Showed him Haditha. It is good? It's very good. Took him to his house, introduced him to his family. What's your name? Waqas. Waqas.

And your name? Yazan. Yazan. They're very cute. Thank you for the tea. Nikhala took Namak to see the mayor, who got worked up talking about the killings.

He's a good man. We don't have a difference, but these are the things. Khaled took Namak to see the mayor, who got worked up talking about the killings. His Excellency is very, very angry. What does he think if this was the other way around? If an Iraqi soldier killed 24 Americans, what would have happened? We would be nuked, said the mayor. Wiped from the face of the earth, said Khalid. That's a very good answer.

I hope not, but yeah, I know what you mean. Well, that tells the story. I'm afraid that... Namak was in Haditha for over a week. During that time, Khalid was busy talking to his family, trying to arrange interviews with them. One day, when Khaled and Namak were talking, Khaled got a phone call. Please respond to your phone. It's okay. We can wait. Okay. Hello? Sorry. It is Safa Younes.

It was from one of the survivors. What did she say? She was ready to talk. And another survivor was too. These two people who'd agreed to talk were children at the time of the killings. Now they were adults. Adults who wanted to tell their stories

for one very specific reason. To try to get justice. Justice for their dead parents, for their dead brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. Their stories, after the break. Hi, this is David Remnick, and I'm pleased to share the news that I'm Not a Robot,

a live-action short film from the New Yorker's Screening Room series, has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. This thought-provoking film grapples with questions that we can all relate to about identity and technology, and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world. I encourage you to watch I'm Not a Robot, along with our full slate of documentary and narrative films, at newyorker.com slash video.

The two survivors Namak spoke to while he was in Haditha are named Abdulrahman Walid and Safa Yunus. Abdulrahman is Khalid's nephew, the son of Khaled's sister, Asma. He's one of the children who'd been injured in the attack and helicoptered to Baghdad. Abdul Rahman was just six years old when his family was killed. He's now 25,

and in college studying computer engineering. Safa is also a relative of Khaled's. Safa was 11 at the time of the killings. Today, she's 30. She said, like, the reason I came to here to do that interview, to get the truth out and to reopen the case again. To get the justice. It's everything. And I don't need my family blood going for nothing.

Back before the killings, Safa and Abdulrahman lived close to each other, almost next door. Just about 100 meters away from where the IED would later go off. Their families were their whole worlds. They had brothers and sisters and grandparents who lived with them. Safa and Abdulrahman's parents tried to shelter their children from the war. Most of the time, they tried to keep them inside the house. And they told them to stay away from the Marines. And Safa did exactly that. She was scared of the Marines and the big weapons they carried.

When she did go out, she stayed close to her father. She said, like, yes, I feel a fear, but when I was beside my father, it's different. I feel safe. But Abdulrahman would sometimes sneak out with his younger brother so they could find the Marines, get candy from them.

Even though their mother kept catching them and ordering them back inside. Abdul Rahman doesn't remember much about his family anymore. He was just six when they were killed. He remembers his father taking him to the mosque on Fridays for prayer. He has a faint memory of his mother's cooking, of the taste of biryani. Abdulrahman and Safa don't often talk about what happened on the day of the killings,

but they have talked about it before, a long time ago, in 2006. In the months after their family members were killed, they were both interviewed by investigators with the U.S. military. They later gave depositions. Those interviews were difficult, but the family felt that they were necessary for the military to have the evidence they needed to prosecute the Marines. I have transcripts and summaries of their interviews and statements from back then.

I also have statements from 2006 from two other members of Abdulrahman's family who also survived the killings and who declined to be interviewed. One of them was an adult at the time. I say all of this because I'm not just relying on these two interviews years later with people who were children at the time for an account of what happened. Memory, of course, is slippery. But what Safa and Abdulrahman are about to say years later with people who were children at the time for an account of what happened. Memory, of course, is slippery. But what Safa and Abdulrahman are about to say is supported not only by their own statements at the time,

but also by the statements of the other survivors. Do you remember the day? I remember. Can you tell us about it, if it's okay with you? The story they're about to tell starts with six-year-old Abdul Rahman, sound asleep on the morning of the killings. He was at home with his family. There were 11 of them at the house that day.

Abdul Rahman, his parents, his siblings, his grandparents, an aunt and two uncles. When all of a sudden... Did you hear the explosion? And what was the sound like? Big, huge sound. Followed by gunfire. There is a gunfire in the street.

Do you mean the main street? The main street, yes. The gunfire on the street. The gunfire on the main street. The IED had exploded near Abdul Rahman's family's house and killed a Marine, Lance Corporal Terrazas. The Marines had then opened fire on five people who'd gotten out of a white car and killed all of them. And now, a small group of Marines, led by the squad leader, Sergeant Frank Wuderich, was heading toward Abdulrahman's house. Abdulrahman's father was in a room in the front of the house, when suddenly, there was a loud noise at the door.

Sergeant Wuderich and his Marines had arrived. What Abdulrahman described about what happened next was not at all how the Marines had made it seem in their statements to Colonel Watt. This was not a gunfight with insurgents, not a vicious battle with shooting back and forth. Abdulrahman described only one group of people shooting, the Marines.

He said there were no insurgents inside his house. It was just his family. The Marines busted down the door of the house and came inside. Abdulrahman couldn't see them. He was in another room. But he heard gunshots. Then the gunfire stopped. And the house was quiet. The Marines had left. Abdulrahman and some of his family members waited a little while.

Then they went to see what had happened. Abdulrahman found his father in the front room, lying in a pool of blood. His father had been shot to death. He said, I was crying. Abdul Rahman's grandmother was also lying dead nearby in the hallway. Two of Abdul Rahman's relatives, his aunt Hiba and uncle Rashid, decided to make a run for it. His aunt took his baby sister with her. His aunt survived, later gave a statement about all this.

But his uncle was later shot to death by Marines outside. Everyone else was gathered in the living room. There were six of them in there. Abdul Rahman, his mother Asma, his eight-year-old sister Iman, his four-year-old brother Abdullah, his other uncle, and his grandfather. Abdulrahman and his sister were sitting on the floor of the living room, near their mother and four-year-old brother Abdullah. Their uncle was near them, too. Abdulrahman remembers their grandfather lying on a bed. Then, all of a sudden, the Marines were back.

From his position in the corner, huddled near his mother and siblings, Abdulrahman saw Marines enter the living room and begin to shoot. They shot at his grandfather as he lay in bed. One of the Marines threw a grenade and it exploded. One of the grandfather's legs blasted off his body from the force of the explosion. Just a note here, another survivor of the killing, Abdulrahman's aunt, recalls the Marines killing the grandfather earlier, when they were in the house the first time. How did the Marines seem?

They are angry and try, they want just to shoot. What happened in the next few minutes inside this room is something Abdulrahman no longer remembers clearly, and maybe never did. Even his statements from back then are vague. He remembers his mother Asma and his four-year-old brother Abdullah being in the room near him. But as for what happened next, he can't say for sure. At some point, he felt a warm sensation.

He'd been hit. I have Abdulrahman's medical records. They say he had a gunshot wound to his back. Eventually, the Marines left. Abdulrahman called out for his family, for his mother, his brother, his uncle, his grandfather. None of them answered. Then his eight-year-old sister Iman responded.

He said, I, I called her. Iman, she answered me. But she couldn't move because her leg was injured. Iman had also been hit, maybe by shrapnel from the grenade. Abdulrahman and his sister stayed together on the floor in the corner, bleeding, next to their dead mom and brother. After the Marines left Abdulrahman's house, they headed to a house nearby. That's where 11-year-old Safa Yunus lived.

She was at home with her family that morning when the IED exploded outside. There were nine of them in the house together that day. Safa, her parents, her five siblings, and her aunt. Safa's mother was in bed, recovering from surgery. She just had her appendix removed. All of a sudden, Safa heard a knock at the door. Safa and her mother, her aunt, and her siblings were all in a bedroom at the back of the house,

while her father went to answer the door. From where Safa and the rest of her family were, in the back bedroom, they could hear sounds, but it wasn't clear what was happening. Then, a marine appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. The bedroom where Safa was, with her mother, her aunt, and her siblings. Her sisters, ages 15, 10, 5, and 3, and her brother, Mohamed, age 8.

The Marine was holding a grenade. He looked at Safa and her family, but didn't say a word. Then he threw the grenade inside the room, closed the door, and left. The bedroom was small, and Safa and her family were obviously terrified. Her aunt told them, come on, come here. And got them all to move as far away from the grenade as they could. Go, go, I mean, stay away from it, from what that thing, the grenade.

Stay away from the grenade. Most of Safa's siblings huddled together on the bed with their mom, on top of a blanket. So she, she are gathering all of us on the bed. But the grenade never went off. And after a little while, they couldn't hear the Marines anymore. Safa's aunt opened the bedroom door and peered down the hallway. She saw Safa's father lying dead on the floor. She started screaming.

Then a Marine appeared in the doorway again. The Marine didn't say anything. He just held up his gun and started shooting. There was a space between the bed and the wall, and Safa and her older sister, Noor, quickly wedged themselves into that space to hide. While Safa and Noor were hiding, they could hear gunshots. They seemed to be nonstop.

But from her hiding spot, Safa couldn't see much of what was happening. Safa and Noor tried to be as still as possible. But Safa said she assumes the Marines must have figured out where they were hiding. Because at one point, a Marine lowered his gun, aimed it under the bed, and started firing. The shots missed Safa, and then the shooting stopped, and the room went quiet. Safa turned to her sister Noor, the one she'd been hiding with, to tell her to come out, they've gone. Noor didn the one she'd been hiding with, to tell her to come out, they've gone. Noor didn't respond. Safa reached over, touched her hand to Noor's head. Get up, get up. But still, Noor didn't answer. And then Safa realized her hand was covered in blood. Noor had been shot in the head. Safa got up and looked at the bed,

the bed where her mom and her other siblings had been huddled together. She saw her 10-year-old sister, Seba, dead. Seba was covered in the blood of her other sister, 5-year-old Zainab, who was also dead. Safa could tell that her youngest sister, Aisha, who was just 3, was also dead, but she couldn't see her face. couldn't see her face. Safa looked at her mother. She was lying dead on her back, shot in the head, her dead children lying all around her. Safa looked across the room and saw her aunt shot dead on the floor. Then Safa heard a

scream. It was her eight-year-old brother, Mohamed. Safa saw that his hands had been shot. He'd lost his fingers. Safa tried to stop her brother from bleeding. Her mother had a towel on her stomach from a recent surgery. Safa grabbed the towel, tried to wrap it around her brother's wounds. She told him, be quiet, they'll come back and kill us.

Then she fainted. When Safa woke up, she was confused. She said she didn't know where to go, or what to do, or what time it was. The room was now completely quiet. Her brother Mohammed was later found dead, on the bed, curled up next to his mom. Safa got up and walked out of her house. On her way out, she passed her father's body next to the kitchen door. She walked to her uncle Yassin's house. She was covered in blood. She told him, the Americans killed everyone.

Safa and Abdulrahman have had to grow up without parents. Abdulrahman also lost his brother, and Safa lost all of her siblings. She was the only one who survived in her entire family. Safa said in those early days, she couldn't imagine what her life would be like without her mom and dad, her brother and sisters. After her family was killed, she moved in with her grandparents. She said they took good care of her. She was eventually able to build a life of her own.

She got married and now has her own family. Abdulrahman was raised by his uncles. Namak asked if he had any objects from his family that would help him remember them. No, Abdulrahman said. Nothing. Namak asked if he had any objects from his family that would help him remember them. No, Abdulrahman said. Nothing. Namak tried to ask Abdulrahman about how the killings of his family affected his life. Abdulrahman declined to answer the question. After the Marines left Safa's house, they still weren't done. They searched a few empty houses.

They went up on a rooftop for a while. And then, they went into one last house. The story of that house, next time on In the Dark. If you want to listen to episode five right now, ad-free, you can do that by subscribing to The New Yorker. Subscribers will get all of our remaining episodes ad-free a week early. Go to newyorker.com slash dark to subscribe and listen now. In the Dark is reported and produced by me, Madeline Barron, managing producer Samara Freemark, producers Natalie Jablonski and Raymond Tungakar,

and reporter Parker Yesko. In the Dark is edited by Catherine Winter and Willing Davidson. Reporting and investigating in Iraq by BBC Arabic's Namak Hoshnaw and field producer Haider Ahmed. Additional interpreting and translation by Aya Al-Shakarchi. This episode was fact-checked by Lucy Croning and Linnea Feldman-Emison. Original music by Alison Leighton-Brown. Additional music by Chris Julin and Johnny Vince Evans.

Sound design and mix by John DeLore. Our theme is by Gary Meister. Our art is by Emiliano Ponzi. Art direction by Nicholas Conrad and Aviva Michaelov. FOIA legal representation from the FOIA team at Loewe & Loewe. Legal review by Fabio Bertone. In the Dark was created by American Public Media. Legal review by Fabio Bertone. In the Dark was created by American Public Media and is produced by The New Yorker.

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