The 2004 Fallujah ambush occurred on March 31, 2004, when Iraqi insurgents attacked a convoy containing four American contractors from the private military company Blackwater USA who were conducting a delivery for food caterers ESS.

The ambush

The four armed contractors— Scott Helvenston, Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona and Mike Teague—were killed and dragged from their vehicles. Their bodies were beaten, burned, dragged through the city streets, and hung from a

Euphrates River The Euphrates ( ; see below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originating in Turkey, the Euphrates flows through S ...

bridge.

Response

Photos of the event, showing jubilant Iraqis posing with the charred corpses, were released to

news agencies A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswir ...

worldwide, which caused a great deal of indignation in the United States. The ambush led to the First Battle of Fallujah, a U.S.-led operation to retake control of the city. The battle was halted mid-way for political reasons, an outcome that commentators have described as insurgent victory. Seven months later, in November 2004, a second attempt to capture the city, the

Second Battle of Fallujah The Second Battle of Fallujah, initially codenamed Operation Phantom Fury, Operation al-Fajr (, ) was an American-led offensive of the Iraq War that began on 7 November 2004 and lasted about six weeks. A joint military effort of the United ...

, proved successful. Intelligence reports concluded that the attack was planned by Ahmad Hashim Abd al-Isawi. He was captured by

Navy SEALs The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the United States Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the United States Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main funct ...

in 2009, five years later. al-Isawi was held for a time by the United States intelligence community, including at Camp Schwedler. In 2010, he testified at a

court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...

of SEALs he accused of mistreating him. He was subsequently handed over to Iraqi authorities for trial and

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

some time before November 2013.

2005 lawsuit

The families of the victims filed suit ('' Helvenston et al. v. Blackwater Security'') against Blackwater USA for wrongful death in January 2005.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fallujah ambush, 2004 2004 murders in Iraq Attacks in 2004 2004 in Iraq Blackwater (company) Battles of the Anbar campaign (2003–2011) Fallujah in the Iraq War Terrorist incidents in Iraq in 2004 Ambushes of the Iraq War March 2004 in Iraq Battles of the Iraq War in 2004 Private military contractors in the Iraq War