Two versions of a boy's death in Baghdad

Two versions of a boy's death in Baghdad
John Tierney NYT Thursday, August 28, 2003
Did U.S. soldiers kill an innocent bystander? Or had he used a grenade first?

BAGHDAD Any of Ali Muhsin's neighbors can describe the scene after he was shot by the Americans.
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First he stumbled around the corner, dripping blood, and collapsed near the front door of his home. His neighbors hailed a taxi to take him to the hospital, but then a Humvee roared down the street and blocked the way.
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An American soldier leapt out and ran up to Ali, firing a shot in the air to scatter the crowd, then aiming his rifle at the boy. The boy's mother, Rajaa Yousif Matti, knelt by his side and implored the soldier not to kill him. She kissed the soldier's boots. But she could not get through to him.
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"If they had let us take him to the hospital, my son would still be alive," she said two days later, at Ali's funeral. "It does not matter if you are a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew. How could anyone treat a human being this way?"
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The soldiers' answer is that they could not and did not. In their version of the scene, they feared for their own lives when they entered that narrow, crowded street, in one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods, yet they still did their best to save a young man who had just tried to kill them with a grenade. But, just like Ali's mother, they could not make themselves heard.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/107942.html