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VIII. ARMS SEARCH THE FOLLOWING DAY

The day after the school shooting, at 5:30 a.m., U.S. soldiers from Charlie Company conducted a search of the buildings across the street from the school. According to press reports at the time and interviews with Human Rights Watch, they found arms and ammunition-not a surprise, given that most al-Falluja residents are gun owners. According to a report filed by the company, soldiers found the following items in the houses on the street of the school:

Two AK-47s
Two light machine guns
Twenty-five expended 7.62 mm shells (AK-47)
Eleven expended shot gun shells
Seven crates of 7.62 mm ammunition60
2,500 .22 caliber rounds
Fifteen 30 round magazines (half of them full)
One seventy-five round drum from a light machine gun

Human Rights Watch did not inspect the confiscated weapons. However, one of the residents of the street facing the school who had weapons confiscated that morning, stressed that the weapons confiscated from his home had not been used on the day of the shooting. Basim Muhammadi, a former Iraqi army major, told Human Rights Watch that the U.S. soldiers had come to his home that morning and confiscated his army-issue AK-47, about 150 AK-47 rounds, some AK-47 clips, empty AK-47 crates used for furniture, and several thousand .22 caliber rounds he used for hunting.61 Muhammadi said he had not used any of the confiscated weapons to shoot at U.S. soldiers.

60 The 82nd Airborne could not confirm for Human Rights Watch whether the ammunition crates were full or empty. Empty ammunition crates are often used for storage or seating in Iraq.

61 Human Rights Watch interview with Basim Muhammed Mahdi Muhammadi, al-Falluja, May 8, 2003. Muhammadi did not possess a .22 caliber weapon, so the bullets could not have been used to shoot at the soldiers. Muhammadi told Human Rights Watch that he had taken the .22 bullets from military stocks and had planned to purchase a .22 rifle soon.

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