BAGHDAD, Iraq March 29 —
Wailing and sobbing, black-clad mourners gathered Saturday for a
funeral procession amid the wreckage of a Baghdad marketplace where
Iraqi officials say dozens of civilians died in a coalition
bombing.
Elsewhere, Iraq's Information Ministry building was damaged but
not destroyed in a pre-dawn U.S. missile attack. Planes were heard
over the capital, drawing anti-aircraft fire, and the blazes started
by authorities to conceal targets seemed to be burning furiously,
sending darker-than-usual clouds over the city on an otherwise clear
day.
At the Al-Nasr market in the working-class district of al-Shoala,
crowds of mourners wailed amid bloodstains and piles of wreckage.
Blood-soaked children's slippers sat on the street not far from a
crater blasted into the ground.
At the scene of the Friday bombing, women in black chadors were
sobbing outside homes where some of the victims lived. Men cried and
hugged each other as a funeral procession passed through the
market.
Down the road, residents gathered at a Shiite Muslim mosque,
crowded around seven wooden coffins draped in blankets. Some of the
men stood silently. Others sobbed into trembling hands. In the
background, women cried, "Oh God! Oh God!"
Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf had said earlier that
58 people were killed and many others wounded in the explosion at
the market Friday evening. There were conflicting reports, however,
on the number of casualties.
Haqi Ismail Razouq, director of al-Nour Hospital, where the dead
and injured were taken, put the death toll at 30 and the number of
injured at 47; surgeon Issa Ali Ilwan said 47 were killed and 50
injured. Witnesses said they counted as many as 50 bodies.
There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.
Witnesses said the bombing took place around 6 p.m., when the
market was at its busiest. They said they saw an aircraft flying
high overhead just before the blast.
"Why do they make mistakes like these if they have the
technology?" asked Abdel-Hadi Adai, who said he lost his 27-year-old
brother-in-law. "There are no military installations anywhere near
here."
The U.S. Central Command in Qatar, which has denied that
coalition forces target civilian neighborhoods, said it was looking
into the incident.
Iraqi officials also have blamed U.S. forces for explosions at
another market that killed 14 people Wednesday. U.S. officials
suggested that blast might have been caused by an errant Iraqi
surface-to-air missile, or even staged deliberately by Iraqi
authorities seeking to discredit the United States.
Elsewhere Saturday, the Information Ministry remained standing
and did not appear to have suffered any structural damage after a
Tomahawk cruise missile attack that the U.S. military command said
was aimed at the ministry building. But many of the satellite dishes
on the roof used by foreign TV crews were damaged, and glass from
broken windows was strewn in the hallways.
Many of the foreign TV reporters still in Baghdad have been
working from a parking area opposite the ministry for fear of an
attack on the building. In anticipation of a bombing, ministry
workers moved computers, printers, TVs and video editing equipment
into warehouses.
Sahhaf told reporters on Saturday that 68 people were killed and
107 wounded in Baghdad alone between Friday evening and Saturday
morning. In addition, 74 people were killed and 244 wounded across
the rest of the country, he said.
"These are cowardly air raids," he told Lebanon's Al-Hayat LBC
satellite television.
In one incident, Sahhaf said coalition forces fired a cluster
bomb at an ambulance carrying a wounded man to hospital. The wounded
man, the driver and a nurse were killed.
"We thank the superpower (America) and we congratulate this hated
(Tony) Blair. Now they are bombing ambulances," he said. "We are
encouraging several groups, lawyers, professors of international law
in order to present a lawsuit against those war criminals."
Iraqi state television, meanwhile, said three Iraqis had been
arrested for spying for the United States, alleging they were
assigned to inspect areas of Baghdad that had been attacked to
determine if they needed to be hit again.
The report identified the men as Ibrahim Abdel Qader, Ghareeb
Ahmed Hamadeh and Hussein Shahed. Qader was quoted as saying he was
given about two pounds of TNT from "foreigners Americans," and
Shahed said he was recruited by an American he identified as "Gen.
Mike" who was from the CIA.
photo credit
and caption:
Relatives of Mohammed Jaber
Hassan weep at the Mohammed Sakran cemetery outside Baghdad
Saturday March 29, 2003. Hassan, 22, died late Thursday when a
bomb fell on a busy Baghdad market, killing 52 and wounding
scores. Over 15 victims were buried at the same time. (AP
Photo/Jerome Delay)
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