|
aljazeerah.info News |
|||
|
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
|
|
US-UK raid kills 14 civilians in Baghdad 'US troops kill 1,000 Iraqis in 72-hour period in Najaf' Jordan Times, 3/27/03 BAGHDAD (AFP) — A missile attack by coalition forces on a Baghdad neighbourhood killed 14 civilians Wednesday, as US President George W. Bush declared after a week of war that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "was losing his grip on power." The death toll from the US-British war aimed at ousting President Saddam and taking control of Iraq's oil wealth climbed as US troops said they had killed 1,000 Iraqis in fierce fighting over the past 72 hours. Dust storms and intense clashes in southern and central Iraq hindered the coalition's drive towards Baghdad for a second straight day, as Bush warned cheering troops in Florida that the military offensive was "far from over." In a working-class residential area of northern Baghdad, at least two US or British missiles struck apartment buildings just before midday, killing 14, wounding 30 others, and destroying and damaging shops, homes and restaurants. Two craters filled with missile debris were visible and pools of blood stained the quarter's main street. Russia, which has long voiced its opposition to the war, called for an immediate end to the fighting after the attack. In a statement, US Central Command acknowledged that coalition fire may have killed some civilians in Baghdad. Explosions rocked the Iraqi capital at dawn on Wednesday, after overnight raids that sent thick black smoke billowing from the state television building, targeted by Washington "to silence Saddam's propaganda machine." Fresh air strikes took place at 7:15pm (1615 GMT), an AFP correspondent in the capital reported, on the seventh day of fighting since US and British forces launched a war aimed allegedly at disarming Iraq and ousting President Saddam's government. The punishing air strikes on Baghdad came as coalition forces in southern and central Iraq battled sandstorms and stiff resistance from Iraqi fighters that hindered their march towards Baghdad. A sea of blinding dust kept the 101st Airborne Division's fleet of more than 270 attack helicopters out of Baghdad for the second day, officers said. "We've got everything we need to carry out the mission, but the weather is absolutely horrid," said Colonel Greg Gass, commander of 101 Aviation Brigade, as gusts of up to 50 knots whipped the desert camp. The US Third Infantry Division was closest to Baghdad, positioned near Karbala, about 100 kilometres from the capital, field reports said, with the 101st crawling up from the southwest and at least two divisions of Marines approaching from the southeast. US troops reported their most one-sided victory of the war thus far, saying they had killed 650 outgunned Iraqi resistance fighters in the outskirts of the Shiite Muslim city of Najaf, south of the capital. In addition, 250 were killed in two separate incidents on the east bank of the Euphrates River, and another 100 on a bridge spanning the river, said Major General Buford Blount, commander of the Third Infantry Division. At least 20 US servicemen and 20 British soldiers have been killed since war erupted early Thursday. A handful of others are believed to have been captured by Iraq. Qatar-based satellite telvision Al Jazeera on Wednesday broadcast photos of two dead British troops and two others reportedly taken prisoners. Nevertheless, Bush hailed the military's "good progress" in Iraq, telling cheering troops at the Florida headquarters of the US Central Command: "Day by day, Saddam Hussein is losing his grip on Iraq." "We cannot predict the final day of the Iraqi regime, but I can assure you — and I assure the long-suffering people of Iraq — there will be a day of reckoning for the Iraqi regime, and that day is drawing near," he added. In the south, US forces regrouped north of Nassiriyah, a key crossing point over the Euphrates river that has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the war, and where at least 100 Iraqis were reported killed. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said Al Sahhaf said more than 500 Iraqi civilians had been wounded and 200 homes destroyed in Nassiriyah as a result of US and British bombing. The coalition failure to capture Nassiriyah, which lies 350 kilometres southeast of the capital and is about a third of the way to Baghdad from the Kuwaiti border, means that key north-south supply routes remain at risk. US marines confiscated more than 3,000 chemical suits and masks from a hospital in Nassiriyah used by Iraqi paramilitaries, US military officials at allied command headquarters in Qatar claimed. But British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told parliament: "To date we have no evidence of Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction during this campaign." Sahhaf denied reports that the country's sole deep-water port of Umm Qasr in the south had fallen under coalition control. Baghdad also rejected reports that an anti-Saddam revolt was ongoing in the country's second city of Basra. But Hoon insisted that the Iraqi government had "effectively lost control of southern Iraq", maintaining that some sort of uprising had occurred in Basra. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, en route to the United States for talks with Bush about the war, told lawmakers before departing that "some limited form of uprising" had taken place in Iraq's main port. But Iraqi officials denied the report and a correspondent in Basra for the Qatar-based satellite television network Al Jazeera said there was no sign of a revolt. As British forces entered the outskirts of Basra, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said clean drinking water had been restored to about half of the city's 1.2 million inhabitants. In the southern Iraqi town of Safwan near the Kuwaiti border, chaos greeted the first aid convoy to reach the country, with some chanting support for President Saddam while others pounced on thousands of meals. In a speech to boost US morale in the wake of days of disappointing results on the battlefield, Bush told a packed hangar of US troops that their comrades were "facing the most desperate elements of a doomed regime." The US president said that "in the early stages of this war, the world is getting a clear view of the Iraqi regime and the evil at its heart." He also vowed that Iraqis who harm coalition prisoners of war or use civilians as human shields would face a "day of justice." Bush was to later head back to his Camp David retreat in Maryland outside Washington for talks with Blair about how to manage the post-Saddam period, with Britain calling for the United Nations to oversee the process. The UN Security Council met Wednesday behind closed doors to discuss the war in Iraq and the possible restart of the oil-for-food program, suspended at the start of hostilities. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed concern over the number of casualties in Iraq, urging both sides to respect international law and take all necessary steps to protect civilians. On financial markets, oil prices rose, stocks were mixed and the dollar slipped slightly as investors scoured battlefield reports for clues as to how the war in Iraq was truly progressing.
Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.
|