One day in Iraq: WikiLeaks war logs

It’s just after midnight in Baghdadon October 17, 2006. A new war day begins.

00.30 South-west of Fallujah, an eight-vehicle convoy of US military engineers checks for roadside bombs, or IEDs. Insurgents have hidden an old artillery shell wired to a pressure switch in a hole in the middle of the road, covered in branches. The first vehicle rolls over the IED and it goes off, badly damaging the truck, but no one is hurt.

02.10 Four Iraqis found murdered.

03.15 US troops in Ramadi see armed insurgents run into a house. They pepper it with cannon fire, but never find out if they hit anyone.

04.30 US soldiers in Baghdad detain a man out after curfew and detect TNT on his skin and clothes. He is arrested.

05.30 Botched suicide bombing, Kirkuk. Two insurgents were driving an explosives-packed Mazda when it exploded prematurely, killing both. “The driver,” write the loggers, “was handcuffed to the wheel.”

06.00 Unknown assailants kill four Iraqis and wound another in Balad. A child is kidnapped in Hasmiyiya.

06.25 In Baghdad, a bomb dog sniffs out an IED, which explodes before it can be defused.

The loggers don’t record the fate of the dog.

06.50 Unknown male corpse found shot in the head in Shulla, west Baghdad.

06.54 An IED is set off as a US convoy heads out of Baghdad to Fallujah. The blast created by 135-225kg of explosives destroys a Humvee. All four US soldiers on board – Russell Culbertson, Joseph Dumas, Christopher Loudon and David Unger – and their Iraqi interpreter, identified only as “Jack”, died instantly.

07.30 A man named Amir Hamoudi is found shot in the head in Baghdad. A woman doctor, Bushra al-Manasir, is shot dead by two assassins on a motorbike in Basra. An unidentified male body is found decayed in Diwaniya.

07.40 Six Iraqis are injured by a bomb explosion near the Al Shaab stadium in Baghdad. An off-duty Iraqi policeman is wounded in a shooting near Baquba.

08.00 Outside Ramadi, police arrest four men carrying a stick of plastic explosive, a grenade fuse, a blasting cap and an explosive booster. Dawad Salman, male, age unknown, is found in a west Baghdad street with a gunshot wound to the head.

08.04 In Baghdad, two mortar shells land in the Karada district, killing a policeman and a civilian.

08.10 Georgian troops near Baquba observe two Iraqis being kidnapped and bundled into a black sedan. They don’t intervene, but tell the Iraqi police.

08.10 Murder of a civilian in Hamamiyat. His hands are tied behind his back and his head has been cut off. In Sabiat, Baghdad, 1st Armoured Division reports a murder. One gunshot to the head, hands tied behind back. The loggers conclude ‘Summary: 1 x murder event. 1 x local national killed in action. 0 x damage. Closed.’

08.20 Marines in Ramadi report an RPG attack. The RPG is a 50-year-old Soviet weapon made partly of wood and functioning with the help of gunpowder that sends a papaya-shaped grenade screaming towards an opponent at 965 km/h. Two RPG projectiles and 500 Kalashnikov bullets smack into the perimeter wall of the marines’ observation post.

08.23 A convoy carrying reconstruction materials is hit by a roadside bomb.

08.30 Unidentified dead man without head or hands found in a river in Qadisiya province.

08.39 A US Apache helicopter gunship reports a green station wagon in Baghdad being strafed by a passing white sedan. The Apache asks for permission to fire on the white car. Air controllers give the go-ahead. The helicopter fires 40 shells at the car.

08.40 Mortars strike an Iraqi police post in Baghdad, killing one policeman and one civilian.

08.43 Hamamiyat, north-west of Baghdad. US cavalry find a dead body.

08.45 A convoy from the British private security firm Aegis is hit by an IED south west of Samarra.

08.50 Taji, north of Baghdad, two unknown civilian corpses found shot in the head.

09.05 North of Haditha, US marines come across two artillery shells buried in the middle of the road, wired to explode. They follow a wire and arrest a suspected insurgent sitting on top of a nearby building.

09.10 A US army foot patrol in Baghdad comes under fire. A bullet strikes Staff Sergeant Garth Sizemore in the upper left leg, passes through his body and comes out the other side. He dies of his wounds.

09.30 Insurgents shoot and kill Abdul Rudha al-Maliki, a member of the Baghdad mayor’s office. Iraqi soldier Hussam Kadhim is wounded in the right hand by a sniper. A lunch truck arrives two hours early at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi police and US military mentors. As Iraqis come towards the truck for food, a blue Volkswagen races towards it and detonates with the force of 225kg of explosive, killing the driver and one other Iraqi and injuring seven. Insurgents begin firing at the US-Iraqi group, who shoot back.

09.35 US marines in Ramadi see an Iraqi 500m away with a Kalashnikov slung on his back aiming an RPG at their position. They open fire and wound him.

09.37 Troops from the 14th Cavalry reach the white car shot up by the Apache. One of the presumed insurgents in the car is dead. Another is wounded and tries to crawl away when the Americans arrive. When the helicopter shot at the white car, an innocent bystander was wounded by shrapnel in the leg. The two people in the green car are dead.

09.45 In the vicinity of Abu Ghraib, a civilian corpse is found shot in the head.

09.45 A US paratroop patrol fails to find a reported IED near the Sura Man Ra’a restaurant in Samarra but arrests four men, including “one individual attempting quickly to wash his hands and face upon sighting coalition forces”.

10.00 Ali Hussein, 70, found dead in the street with a gunshot wound to the head, west Baghdad.

10.13 US army engineers in an armoured vehicle are struck by a salvo of homemade “explosively formed penetrators”. One severs the left arm below the elbow on one engineer. Four other occupants are lacerated by shrapnel.

10.15 In Baghdad, a woman is found handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head. An unidentified plane shoots up a civilian car in Baghdad’s Dorah district, killing the car’s owner and one other person.

10.15 In Mosul, the Iraqi Army is struck by a multi-IED attack and a drive-by shooting from two cars. One civilian is killed and two soldiers are wounded.

10.30 A car bomb blows up at an Iraqi police checkpoint in southern Baghdad, killing two Iraqi policemen and injuring 11. A civilian is wounded in a drive-by shooting.

11.00 US troops on patrol with Iraqi police in Baquba take heavy fire. Two Iraqi police are injured. An Iraqi policeman is found murdered in north Baghdad, shot six times in the head and chest.

11.10 Man found dead in Muqdadiya, Diyala province, with two gunshot wounds to the chest.

11.10 East of Fallujah, a sniper fires a single shot at marines. One is seriously wounded. His comrades decide the sniper is in an orange car and riddle it with bullets, injuring the driver. He turns out to be an innocent civilian.

11.30 Iraqi policeman shot dead by sniper in Baghdad. His comrades capture two men.

11.40 Insurgents open up on an Iraqi highway patrol south of Baghdad. One policeman takes a bullet in the shoulder and a bullet in the neck but survives.

11.53 A sniper, firing from a two-storey building from about 170m, shoots dead a marine, Joshua Booth, in palm groves in Haditha. His comrades arrest four Iraqis.

12.00 Muhallah Hurryah, 16, found dead in the street in Kadhimiya, Baghdad, with gunshot wound to the head. Civilian found shot in the head in Isskan, Baghdad. Mortar attack on Baghdad’s Abu Dashir market kills one civilian and injures 10. Two Iraqi police wounded in drive-by shooting. A US special forces vehicle rolls over, toppling off the edge of a bridge and killing a gunner, Daniel Winegeart.

12.15 Iraqi policeman shot dead in Baquba, three civilians wounded. Iraqi police open fire on a woman driver who refuses to leave her car when asked and tries to drive away. She is killed.

12.25 Insurgents fire on a marine patrol in Amariya, seriously injuring two.

12.20 Brother of the governor of Nineveh province attacked in Mosul. One bodyguard wounded.

12.24 US soldier shot in the face by insurgent in Tarmiya, north of Baghdad.

12.30 Unidentified male pulled from the Tigris. The victim was shot in the head.

12.45 Unidentified corpse found handcuffed and asphyxiated in Baghdad.

12.58 Fallujah: Sniper kills Iraqi soldier.

13.00 Male body found next to the Yafa school in Mammon, Baghdad. He had hands bound behind his back with cloth, one gunshot wound to the head, appears to have animal bite marks on his neck.

13.07 A sniper in Fallujah kills an Iraqi soldier.

13.15 Off-duty Iraqi policeman shot dead in Baquba.

13.30 One unidentified man found shot in the head in Iskan, Baghdad. Three men found handcuffed, feet bound and shot in the head in Mahmoudiya, Baghdad.

14.00 ‘Z’, an Iraqi interpreter with a US artillery battalion, is kidnapped while heading back to his base in Tikrit after six days on leave in Baghdad. Z is stopped by masked, uniformed Iraqi police who are working with a group of insurgents. Z is interrogated by the leader of the insurgents. He persuades him to spare him and is released.

14.30 Estonian troops north of Baghdad find the corpses of three Iraqis, bound, with gunshot wounds to the head.

14.50 Unidentified male corpse found in Suq al Jadida, Baghdad. Shot in the head.

14.55 A convoy of four US Army Humvees north-west of Baquba is caught in an explosion. Three Americans, Ryan Haupt, Norman Taylor and Nathan Frigo, are killed outright and a fourth has the femoral artery severed in his right leg. One Iraqi found walking with his bike nearby is arrested.

15.00 In Basra, Yaseen Ajman Yaseen is blown up by his own bomb while trying to plant it. Iraqi police report the murder of three unidentified civilians, found with multiple gunshot wounds, in central Baghdad.

15.02 Civilian tells Iraqi Army of three corpses with gunshot wounds to the head in Muradiya, just outside Baghdad’s southern suburbs.

15.10 Unknown Iraqis break into a house in southern Baghdad, kill three people and wound two others.

15.12 US cavalrymen in Baghdad find three half-buried corpses.

15.15 An Iraqi civilian driving through central Baghdad is forced to pull over by another car. A man gets out of the second car, forces the first driver out at gunpoint, shoots him dead, gets in his car and drives away.

15.20 A mortar shell lands near a mosque in Mahmudiya, killing one civilian and injuring another.

15.27 Marines in Khalidiya search a house and find multiple cordless phone base stations and a Kalashnikov with four loaded magazines. They arrest the house’s owner.

15.30 Two unidentified male corpses found in Taji, handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head. Two men murdered with gunshot wounds to the head in Haifa St, central Baghdad.

15.40 Presumed insurgent mortar shell lands close to a mosque in Sakran, south of Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding another.

15.45 A group of Iraqis in Iraqi Army uniforms, driving six cars, kidnaps 10 people from a house in Baghdad’s Wadha area. South of Baquba, presumed insurgents open fire on a car, killing a civilian.

16.00 Iraqi policeman shot and wounded in Rashid, Baghdad.

16.10 In full view of a 23rd Infantry command post in central-west Baghdad, four white Toyota Land Cruisers bear down on a civilian and one of the men inside shoots him. Two of the cars are police cars. They take the injured man away. The 23rd Infantry unit find the victim’s brother. He explains that his brother was kidnapped, then tried to escape before he was shot and abducted again.

16.15 Man found shot in the head in a small town north of Baghdad.

16.20 Unidentified man found shot in the head in west-central Baghdad. IED goes off north-west of Baquba, killing one civilian and injuring three others.

16.23 South of Fallujah, a US team checking for roadside bombs is approached from behind by a car . It stops, a man gets out, fires an RPG, gets back inside and drives away.

16.25 Body with a gunshot wound to the head found inside a black car in west Baghdad.

16.30 Dead man found handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head on the eastern edge of Baghdad.

16.37 Outside Balad, an American blimp, two Apache helicopter gunships and a Predator drone are employed to arrest three men seen digging with a pickaxe by the side of the road. Near Ramadi, an Iraqi raises his arm to throw a grenade at a marine patrol. It explodes, blowing his right arm off.

16.40 Iraqi police show US troops the corpses of five Iraqis killed execution-style in north-west Baghdad.

16.42 Another firefight in central Ramadi sees the marines launch 89 grenades at four insurgents with Kalashnikovs in a building 250m away. They are sure they killed one of them.

16.49 Insurgents open fire on an observation post run by a US tank unit in south-eastern Ramadi. After the Americans return fire, they see a group of insurgents with Kalashnikovs and an RPG launcher run out of the building they were firing from and jump into a black 4WD, from where they carry on shooting. One of the unit’s M1 tanks shoots at the car. The car escapes, then reappears a few blocks away, and the tank opens fire again but misses. The tank crew switch to a bigger machine gun, but it jams. They radio for permission to use their main gun, a powerful weapon designed to take out heavily armoured Soviet tanks at long range. The car is destroyed and all four of its occupants killed.

16.50 A bomb kills an Iraqi soldier and wounds two near a mosque in central Baghdad.

17.10 In Haqlaniya, a village by the Euphrates in north-west Iraq, a grenade and a single bullet fly out of the window of a truck as it passes a marine foot patrol, injuring one American.

17.20 Unidentified male found with hands and feet bound, shot in the head.

17.34 The 23rd Infantry unit is still working on the shooting and kidnapping they witnessed, which they clearly suspect is the work of a Shia death squad working within the police. The last entries in the log of the incident report that they are going to Yamuk hospital “to check on wounded”.

18.00 Five unidentified male corpses found in north-east Baghdad. Iraqi Army convoy struck by a roadside bomb in west-central Baghdad. One soldier killed, two wounded.

19.00 Unidentified male corpse found on the street in north-east Baghdad.

19.20 A convoy of Humvees near Anah, in north-west Iraq, is moving slowly, urging recruits to come forward for the Iraqi police, when the last vehicle is struck by an RPG.

20.00 Unidentified civilian corpse found blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the head in Huriya, west Baghdad.

20.10 Five male bodies, one with a Syrian passport, found in Sadr City, Baghdad, with hands and feet bound, shot in the head.

20.11 Iraqi policeman murdered in his home in Samarra.

20.15 Iraqi policeman shot dead in Baghdad. Three bombs go off, damaging four houses and injuring 13 people.

21.00 An intelligence officer with the Iraqi police, found dead in west-central Baghdad.

21.03 US troops in Ramadi see an Iraqi getting through the barrier and wire at the easternmost checkpoint of their post. They shoot him dead.

21.30 Ahmed Dawood Madhloom found shot in the head in Sadr City, Baghdad.

21.50 US infantrymen searching a house in Najm al Abd Allah, south-west of Baghdad, inspect the hard drive of an Iraqi civilian’s computer and find a Microsoft Word file called “Infantry”. They arrest the civilian. Examination of the hard drive reveals military-themed computer games. The suspect is released.

22.00 Lieutenant Ammar Sattar of the Iraqi security forces found murdered with multiple gunshot wounds in Hillah. A bruised Iraqi prisoner at a US “detainee internment facility” in Baquba says one of his previous captors, an Iraqi police unit, kicked him in the face, arm and leg. “All paperwork,” record the loggers, “has been sent up through the necessary channels.”

22.50 Marine convoy hit by IED near Fallujah. Four marines wounded, one Humvee badly damaged.

23.20 An Iraqi security forces unit comes under fire from the Sunni Saydiya mosque in Baghdad . Two Iraqi police are injured and a reinforced unit of police storms the mosque. Iraqis in surrounding houses fire on the police. After a gunfight lasting an hour, the police are able to enter the mosque, where they find a homemade bomb, explosives and a Kalashnikov. They arrest two people.

23.45 Iraqi convoy hit by IED near Kirkuk. Three Iraqi soldiers are killed and three police wounded.

Iraqi deaths: 136

* 97 civilians

* 19 members of security forces

* 10 suspected insurgents

* 10 unknown

US deaths: 10

* Including one road accident

* 10 military personnel

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