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Whatever is done needs to be done soon. An anniversary is approaching. On April 28, 2003, U.S. forces killed some 13+ Iraqis and wounded 75-100 in Fallujah in a controversial incident. It happened during a protest when marchers, including a lot of children (three of the dead were reportedly children under 10), marched on the base that the 82nd had set up in a school. According to CENTCOM, the U.S. troops opened fire when they received fire from armed men in the crowd, but the evidence is in dispute (one report says rocks being thrown by protesters shattered vehicle glass and was mistaken for automatic weapons fire). The Fallujis, naturally, claimed no one in the crowd was armed and the Americans fired on unarmed civilians. Makes more sense that fedayeen used the protest as a cover (or instigated the protest to get cover) to get close to U.S. troops and provoke the incident.
On the Muslim calendar, the first anniversary of that incident will be this April 16. On the Western calendar, of course, the anniversary is April 28. So both dates bear watching for efforts by agitators to start something again.
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