AJ Strata has another development in the Haditha story. Actually one of his readers commenting under the name SBD found a conflicting Reuters story and says a Reuters camerman had eyewitnessed at least some of what happened in Haditha that day.

A cameraman working for Reuters in Haditha says bodies had been left lying in the street for hours after the attack.

He says the town has been virtually shut down for the past two days as US and Iraqi forces try to impose order.

While the story does cite a Reuters camerman. I do not see who actually filed this story in the link provided nor can I determine if the Reuters camerman was an eyewitness or just reporting what he was told. The Reuters cameraman is not named in the report.
I have sent an email to Reuters asking them four questions:
1. Who filed this report?

2. What is the name of the Camerman cited in the report?

3. Did he eyewitness any of the events in Haditha that day?

4. Can you make him available to answer questions about what he eye witnessed that day?

Much more to come I am sure.

***Update***

Whoah. Dan Riehl just emailed me this story:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A second Iraqi journalist working for Reuters has been ordered detained indefinitely by a secret tribunal and the news agency demanded on Monday that he be released or given a chance to defend himself in open court.

Freelance television cameraman Samir Mohammed Noor, who was arrested by Iraqi troops at his home in the northern town of Tal Afar four months ago, was found to be “an imperative threat to the coalition forces and the security of Iraq” at a secret hearing last week, a U.S. military spokesman said.

Samir is one of at least four journalists for international media being held without charge by the U.S. military in Iraq. Another is Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani, also a cameraman for Reuters, who was arrested in the western city of Ramadi seven weeks ago and ordered detained at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Could any of these guys be the camera man who might have been in Haditha that day?

If I am behind the curve here and anyone knows something I don’t please comment below.

***Update***

Sweetness & Light has told me via email that she has speculated that the unamed camera man in the original Reuters report was a man named Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani in this post but she did not confirm this with Reuters. She notes that this man shares the same last name as another man who supplied the video of the alleged masacre victims, and claims to have eye witnessed the events that day. One other important fact. This camera man has been arrested twice now by the US military. At one point he was detained for 5 months in between the initial report and the TIME story.

It turns out Mr. al-Mashhadani might not have felt the kindliest intentions towards the US, having been imprisoned for five months mere weeks before his Haditha scoop.

Al-Mashhadani was detained because images found on his camera and because of his t”ies to the insurgents,” according to US officials.

Indeed, al-Mashhadani has since been detained by the US again, for two weeks. In fact he was only released today.

***Update***

This from Clarice Feldman’s American Thinker article:

On November 20, 2005, Reuters reported that on the previous day an IED killed a US Marine and 15 civilians in Haditha, a town known to be a center of the insurgency, a town as hostile to our forces as the better known Fallujah was.

The paper further reported that “A cameraman working for Reuters in Haditha says bodies had been left lying in the street for hours after the attack.” Reuters never named this cameraman but he was almost undoubtedly Ali al-Mashhadani.

I have emailed American Thinker in an attempt to contact Ms. Feldman. I would like to know if she attempted to contact Reuters and if they replied.

Now more than ever I want to know if this is the same un named camera man from the original Reuters story and if so why there was no mention of a masacre in his initial report.
***Update***

Riehl World View has just put up a new post on this story:

Speaking primarily through their attorneys, several of the Marines directly involved in events in Haditha are beginning to tell their side of the story. They are insisting that the Rules of Engagement were followed and that there was no attempt to cover up the number of civilians killed in the fire fight.

The link is to a Washington Post article titled Marine Says Rules Were Followed where one Marine gives a house by house account of their actions that day.

Hot Air has more on the story today:

*** Update ***

after he Washington Post article today many more bloggers are commenting on this story.

Right Wing Nut House has this to say:

One side or the other is lying in spectacular fashion.

And not just little inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony that one would expect in a war zone either. There are extremely disturbing indications that press reports detailing eyewitness accounts have failed to reconcile what Iraqis in Haditha were telling them with other known facts that were either conveniently left out or ignored altogether. There are also clear and unambiguous cases where Iraqi eyewitnesses have changed their stories 2, 3, and even more times.

The Political Pit Bull says:

If there are any individuals that deserve the benefit of the doubt, it’s our troops fighting an extremely difficult war in Iraq. But the Marines accused of the incident in Haditha have not been given that privilege.

The title of Confederate Yankee’s post says it all My Lai or My Lie

I will not comment at this time to say which version of events is correct, but I’ll note that Dan Riehl captured last week the various inconsistencies in the media-reported statements of Haditha residents, which makes this appear to be anything other than a cut-and-dried case as the media so eagerly reported it at first.

Mudville Gazette has a timeline of the press reports coming out about Haditha.