US military suppresses information on death of contractors in Iraq

US military officials in Iraq are suppressing information on an incident last month in a town in the Sunni Triangle in which four American contractors were killed by insurgents and their bodies dragged through the streets, while crowds denounced the US occupation.

The incident took place September 20 in Duluiya, a town on the Tigris River, when a convoy of contractors for Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), the construction subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation, took a wrong turn while traveling to an Army base. According to a report October 22 in the Daily Telegraph, a conservative British newspaper, “As the lorries desperately tried to reverse out, dozens of Sunni Arab insurgents wielding rocket launchers and automatic rifles emerged from their homes.”

Two contractors were killed in the firefight that ensued. Two more survived the initial shooting but were then dragged from their pickup trucks, forced to kneel on the street in front of the insurgents, executed and their bodies set on fire. Residents began clapping and chanting in support of the resistance and threw straw and other inflammable materials on the fire. Two other contractors survived the attack and were rescued by US soldiers.