Uncovering the Haditha Massacre: Evidence Implicates US Marines in Family Killings

Mon Nov 17 2025 05:17:17 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

A recent investigation reveals new evidence implicating US marines in the 2005 Haditha massacre, where 24 Iraqi civilians, including Safa Younes's family, were killed. Two marines have been identified but were not brought to trial, raising serious questions about accountability.

In a shocking revelation, forensic analysis from a BBC investigation unveils evidence linking two US marines to the killings of Safa Younes's family during the notorious Haditha massacre in 2005. Despite substantial proof, justice for the victims remains elusive as no charges have been brought against the implicating marines, prompting calls for accountability nearly two decades later.

This is the room where my whole family was killed, says Safa Younes.

Bullet holes pepper the front door to the house in the Iraqi town of Haditha, where she grew up. Inside the back bedroom, a colorful bedspread covers the bed where her family was shot.

This is where she hid with her five siblings, mum and aunt when US marines stormed into their home and opened fire, killing everyone apart from Safa, on 19 November 2005. Her dad was also shot dead when he opened the front door.

Now, 20 years on, a BBC Eye investigation has uncovered evidence that implicates two marines, who were never brought to trial, in the killing of Safa's family, according to a forensic expert.

The evidence - mainly statements and testimony given in the aftermath of the killings - raises doubts about the American investigation into what happened that day, and poses significant questions over how US armed forces are held to account.

The killing of Safa's family was part of what became known as the Haditha massacre, when US marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians, including four women and six children. They entered three homes killing nearly everyone inside, as well as a driver and four students in a car, who were on their way to college.

The incident triggered the longest US war crimes investigation of the Iraq war, but no one was convicted of the killings.

The marines said they were responding to gunfire after a roadside bomb went off, killing one of their squad members, and injuring two others.

But Safa, who was 13 at the time, tells the World Service: We hadn't been accused of anything. We didn't even have any weapons in the house.\

She survived by pretending to be dead among the small bodies of her sisters and brother - the youngest was three years old. I was the only survivor out of my entire family, she says.

Four marines were initially charged with murder, but they gave conflicting accounts of the events, and over time US military prosecutors dropped charges against three of them, granting them immunity from further legal action.

That left squad leader Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich as the only one to face trial in 2012.

In a video recording of a pre-trial hearing, which has never been broadcast before, the most junior member of the squad, Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza is questioned and re-enacts events at Safa's house.

Mendoza - who was a private at the time and was never charged - admits to killing Safa's father when he opened the front door to the marines.

In his official statements, Mendoza had initially claimed that after entering the house, he opened the door to the bedroom where Safa and her family were, but when he saw there were only women and children inside he did not go in and instead shut the door.

However, in a newly discovered audio recording from Wuterich's trial, Mendoza gives a different account. He says that he walked about 8ft (2.4m) into the bedroom.

Using the crime scene photos taken by the Marine Corps at the time of the killings, forensic expert Michael Maloney concluded that two marines had entered the room and shot the women and children.

Maloney told the BBC that the prosecution wanted Wuterich to be that primary shooter. But before Maloney was able to testify, Wuterich's trial ended in a plea deal.

Safa Younes, now 33, still lives in Haditha with her children and feels the pain of her family's loss deeply. I want those who did this to be held accountable and to be punished by the law. It's been almost 20 years without them being tried. That's the real crime.