ALI KINANI WAS 9 years old when he was shot in the head by Blackwater guards on September 16, 2007 in a traffic circle in Baghdad, Iraq. He was in the back seat of his father’s SUV with two of his cousins. Their mother was in the front seat. Ali’s father, Mohammed Kinani, was driving and saw four armored cars enter the traffic circle from the wrong direction. The “soldiers” held up their hands for traffic to stop. Mohammed stopped his car. He initially thought the men were U.S. soldiers. They were not.
It wasn’t unusual for regular U.S. Army convoys to stop traffic. The traffic circle, Nisour Square, was only a block away from one of the main entrance gates to Baghdad’s Green Zone. When Mohammed looked to his right, the driver of the car next to him shouted that the “soldiers” had just shot into another car in front of them. Suddenly, bullets began to riddle Mohammed’s car. A rocket grenade was fired into the car next to him. The man that just spoken to him was dead. He had tried to run but was lying in a pool of blood — killed by machine gunfire from the armored cars.

I represented the Kinani family and five other victims of the Blackwater guards who were convicted of killing at least 14 innocent Iraqi citizens that day — and injured dozens more. Almost everyone who was killed or injured was shot in cars, taxis, or buses. The ones who were killed on the street were shot running for their lives. Ali was the youngest of Blackwater’s victims that day. I sued Blackwater, its founder Erik Prince, and the four men who were convicted of murder, manslaughter, or weapons charges in a civil lawsuit filed in North Carolina, the home of Blackwater’s headquarters and training facility in Moyock.

To understand the carnage that happened on the streets that day, you need to hear it in Mohammed’s words as he explained it to me.

Mohammed was going to visit his sister and her children. As he was leaving, his youngest son, who was affectionately given the nickname “Alawi,” asked to go with his father. Although Mohammed was going to return quickly with his sister and Ali’s cousins for a visit, Mohammed told his son that he could go with him. Their route home was through Nisour Square.

Mohammed was thrilled when the U.S. entered Baghdad years earlier in 2003. Mohammed met members of the U.S. Army on the streets and handed out candy and juice when he saw them. Mohammed was a businessman dealing in auto salvage. He despised Saddam Hussein and his oppressive and vindictive ways. Mohammed was glad Saddam’s reign of terror was finally ending.

When Mohammed saw the convoy enter the traffic circle, he initially thought they were regular U.S. Army members. Being so close to the Green Zone, he thought someone important might be entering or leaving the area. That wasn’t unusual. But when the shooting started, his life — and the lives of his entire family — changed forever.

Luckily, before his SUV was attacked, Mohammed, his sister, and their children had time to duck into the car. Mohammed and his sister screamed for their children to get down. Bullets were everywhere. Mohammed would look to see what was happening. He saw the man next to him run. Machine gunfire tore through his body. Shots were fired everywhere. Mohammed could see other cars being shot. The Blackwater guards were firing indiscriminately. Iraqi traffic police initially tried to wave down the Blackwater men that there was no threat, but they too had to run for cover. Mohammed kept seeing the man on the ground next to him being fired upon as he lay dead. Machine gunfire would cause his lifeless body to shake in his pool of blood. In the middle of the attack, Mohammed could not understand why this man lying dead was a target. He could not understand what was happening or why. But he knew he was surviving as he kept yelling for the children in the back of his SUV to stay down.

The shooting ended as suddenly as it started. The four armored vehicles drove away. Everything was eerily quiet. Mohammed had not been shot. His sister was safe. He thought they had been given a miracle after he saw so many others killed. Then one of his sister’s children said that Ali was hurt.

Mohammed quickly got out of the car and saw blood inside the rear window. Ali was slumped over against the glass. When Mohammed opened the door, his son fell toward him as his skull opened and a large part of Ali’s brain fell onto the pavement between his father’s feet. Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road in Nisour Square.