Feisty Aphrodite Archives
Beheading of soldiers may be retribution for rape, murder of Iraqi teen
Abeer Qasim Hamza. That is the name of the fourteen-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by U.S. Army soldiers in the village of Mahmudiyah. In March, former Private First Class Steven Green entered the home of Hamza along with four other troops, Sargeant Paul Cortez, Specialist James Barker, and Privates First Class Jesse Spieldman and Bryan Howard. The men became intoxicated before approaching the home, and reports show that three of the men dressed in black to conceal their identity. Upon entering, Green (with a brown shirt over his face) marched Hamza's mother, Fakhriya Taha Muhsen, her father, Kasim Hamza Rasheed, and five-year-old sister Hadel into a room and executed them with an AK-47. After Green murdered her family, he and another soldier then raped Hamza before shooting her multiple times in the head, killing her instantly. They set fire to her body to burn any physical evidence and discarded the AK-47 into a nearby canal. The family's two younger sons returned home from school to find their house burning with their dead family members inside.
This incident just recently came into light after Green was charged by a U.S. district court on June 30. The Louisville, Kentucky office filed the charges after soldiers from Green's unit disclosed the murders during counseling sessions regarding the beheading of two U.S. troops in June. The two soldiers, Private Kristian Manchaca and Private Thomas Tucker, were captured after their security checkpoint was ambushed. The mens' beheaded bodies were found June 11 in Yusufiyah, a neighboring village of Mahmudiyah, with signs of torture. The two men were members of the same Division as Green and the other four alleged perpetrators, and it has been speculated that their deaths were an act of revenge for Hamza's rape and murder.
In March, both local and military officials blamed insurgents for the heinous crime, despite members of the village speculating they were U.S. soldiers. Abu Firas Janabi, a cousin of Hamza's family, said that her mother had complained to him that U.S. soldiers had repeatedly visited the house in search of Hamza and that the beautiful girl was constantly harassed. Relatives encouraged Hamza's family to move into a vacant house close to their home, but Hamza's parents reassured them that they were safe. The U.S. military first reported that Hamza was twenty-five-years old, then stated that she was twenty. An identification card released today confirmed Hanza was only fourteen, with her fifteenth birthday approaching next month. Green will be tried as a civilian, for he was honorably discharged after being diagnosed with a personality disorder. The charges brought against him and the other four soldiers could warrant the death penalty. A sixth soldier, Sargeant Anthony Yribe, has also been charged for dereliction of duty for not reporting the crime.
You can view Green's official criminal complaint filed by the United States District Court here.
