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Photos Reveal US Marines’ 2005 Haditha Massacre of Iraqi Civilians After 19 Years

Abdullahi Jimoh
Photos Reveal US Marines' 2005 Haditha Massacre of Iraqi Civilians After 19 Years

A mother, Asmaa Salman Raseef, thirty-two, and her four-year-old son, Abdullah, lie dead in the corner of their living room. Asmaa’s arm is around her son, perhaps in a final attempt to protect him. Asmaa appears to be injured in the upper back. Abdullah was determined by military investigators to have a bullet wound in his head. N.C.I.S. investigators concluded that the Marine who shot Abdullah was likely standing less than six feet away. (Credit: The New Yorker)

Photographs depicting the massacre of Iraqi civilians by US Marines in Haditha nearly two decades ago have been published after a protracted legal battle. The New Yorker magazine released the images, which were previously classified, showing the brutal aftermath of the November 19, 2005, Haditha massacre.

On that day, US Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians, including women, children, and elderly individuals, in three homes. The victims ranged from a three-year-old girl to a seventy-six-year-old man. The massacre, which also included the shooting of five men driving to Baghdad, led to one of the longest war-crime investigations in US military history.

Haditha Massacre – A five-year-old girl, Zainab Younis Salim, was shot in the head by a U.S. Marine. Zainab died in a bed next to her mother, sisters, and brother. A Marine scrawled the number eleven on her back with a red Sharpie marker after the killings, to differentiate the dead in photos. (Credit: The New Yorker)

The massacre occurred in response to the death of a Marine in an IED explosion earlier that day. Despite the fact that all of the victims were civilians, the Marines involved were never imprisoned; murder charges were dropped, and the case ended in a plea deal.

The photos show the harrowing scenes inside the homes, with bodies marked with numbers by the Marines for identification. Among the victims was 42-year-old Ayda Yassin Ahmed, found surrounded by her dead children, and five-year-old Zainab Younis Salim, who was shot in the head alongside her family.

Haditha Massacre – The body of Jaheed Abdul Hameed Hassan, forty-three, is against the wall in the foreground. A military medical examiner concluded that Jaheed was likely lying down or sitting against the wall when he was shot. (Credit: The New Yorker)

The release of these photos came after The New Yorker pursued a Freedom of Information Act request, facing resistance from the US Navy and military. The magazine’s team, aided by Iraqi lawyer Khalid Salman Raseef—who lost 15 family members in the massacre—collected signatures from victims’ relatives to push for the release of the images. After years of legal wrangling, the US military handed over the photos in March of this year.

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