Skip to main content

The tragic last moments of Margaret Hassan - Robert Fisk, Commentators - The Independent

The tragic last moments of Margaret Hassan - Robert Fisk, Commentators - The Independent: "For some in the Al Jazeera studios these archives are intensely personal. 'I trained Ali Khatib – he was a great reporter,' I am told. 'The war was almost declared at an end in Iraq and he went out with our cameraman to cover some story and, while he's approaching an American checkpoint, you can hear an American soldier on the tape say 'Stop – you have to go back'. And then the soldier just shot at them and killed both of them. Ali had got married two weeks earlier.'

For some, the videotapes will always be too much. When I met Margaret's husband Tahseen in his Baghdad home after her murder, he was a picture of courage and mourning. There were terrible times. 'I would come home and sit here and weep,' he told me then. 'I would sit here sometimes and go out of my mind crying and sobbing. I don't think insurgents did this. I don't think Iraqi people did this ... I couldn't see the video that was released – not because she's my wife, but because I can't bear to see anyone assassinated.'

So who did murder Margaret Hassan? On the video of her apparent execution, there are no Islamic banners, no Muslim chants, no claim of responsibility, just the killer and the fatal shot. After her kidnap, Marg"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Broken Spring?       : Information Clearing House

Broken Spring?       : Information Clearing House This is a sequel to my June 2011 article, ‘After the spring’, on the upheavals in the Arab world. It is an article that has been painful to write, because it brings bad tidings and offers a pessimistic analysis of the upheavals, at least in the short term, in a number of Arab countries. The outcomes and potential outcomes of these uprisings have also acquired new, very significant dimensions. These include a complex entanglement with the accelerated preparations for a possible attack on Iran, and a poisonous, sectarian aspect that could have the consequence of ripping Syria and the Middle East apart.