Grave diggers preparing fresh spots
yesterday in Sakran cemetery outside
Baghdad for the victims of
the coalition bombing.
(Photo: AP)
Posted on 03/29/2003 4:39:01 PM PST by demlosers
Proving the coalition's denial of any pause in the drive toward Baghdad, a fierce air assault was mounted against Baghdad yesterday, targeting the center and outskirts of the metropolis with repeated heavy bombing of Republican Guard positions to soften them up in expectation of the push for the Iraqi capital.
The new attacks followed an overnight strike Friday on Iraq's Information Ministry and a marketplace blast that Iraq said killed dozens of civilians.
Several large blasts shook the city center after dark yesterday. Fierce attacks beginning in the afternoon also targeted outlying areas where Iraq's Republican Guard are believed to be dug in to defend the capital against advancing U.S.-led forces. The attacks on the outskirts lasted for hours.
"There has been very heavy bombardment to the south and to the west. It seems unprecedented," a Reuters correspondent said. "It is clear this is a major bombing campaign. The thuds of explosions just don't stop."
Yesterday morning, reporters found the Information Ministry compound littered with shattered glass and mangled filing cabinets and office equipment.
A missile appeared to have pierced the roof of the main 11-story ministry building, and aerials and satellite dishes on the roof were broken.
A ministry annex housing the offices of several media organizations was also damaged
A U.S. Central Command statement said Tomahawk cruise missiles had targeted the ministry building, but that an official assessment of the damage was not yet available.
U.S. officials have said they are targeting communications facilities in an effort to prevent President Saddam Hussein from controlling the country and his armed forces.
Previous raids targeted television facilities close to the Information Ministry and elsewhere. Iraq's international satellite television channel went off the air on Friday evening, but yesterday both the satellite channel and domestic television resumed broadcasts.
Iraqis said an air raid on a Baghdad market on Friday evening killed dozens of civilians (See full story on Front Page of IHT). Dr. Enaam Mohammad of Al Noor hospital told reporters yesterday the toll in the attack had risen to 62 dead and 49 injured. Abu Dhabi television said U.S. cruise missiles may have hit the market and showed a gaping hole on one street and damaged cars.
At U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar, Major-General Victor Renuart told a news conference yesterday the incident was under investigation.
"It is a tragedy when civilians are killed. We are looking at targets that may have caused something like that," he said.
The U.S. military said earlier this week that a previous explosion in a Baghdad residential area on Wednesday may have been caused by an errant Iraqi air-defense missile or deliberate sabotage by the Iraqi administration.
Renuart said an investigation of Wednesday's blast was almost complete. "We want to make sure that if there is an error, we will find that out and...if it was carried out by an Iraqi system," he said.
The U.S. forces appeared to have been experiencing some problems with Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from ships recently, and opted to halt firing them over parts of Saudi Arabia after the kingdom complained some of the weapons landed in the desert.
The problems apparently involved missiles fired from ships in the Mediterranean and Red Seas, said Renuart. He said launch procedures would be reviewed to "make sure that we don't have a systems problem that we might not have been aware of."
He said the United States was trying to fix the problem and would "go back with the Saudis and work to resume those [launches] when it's appropriate."
Ships in the north Persian Gulf have continued to fire Tomahawk missiles, said Lt. Cmdr. Mike Brown, a Navy spokesman for the USS Kitty Hawk battle group.
Renuart confirmed a suicide attack north of Najaf yesterday in which four American soldiers were killed when a car bomb exploded at a U.S. checkpoint (See Page 3).
The major general confirmed reports that U.S. forces had found the bodies of some allied troops in shallow graves near Nasiriyah, where a fierce battle has raged for days.
He said American forensic investigators were going to the grave sites. Renuart said he could not say how many bodies had been found.
Also in western Iraq, special operations forces stopped 30 men in civilian clothes carrying mortars, Iraqi military uniforms, petroleum bombs and cash, he said.
North of Karbala, Apache helicopters hit the Republican Guards' Medina division, destroying tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery pieces, and some surface-to-air missile radars, Renuart said.
There is no pause in our ground operations either.
As Rummy is fond of saying, "You're just looking at the wrong, tiny, slice of the pie."
Specifically you're looking south of Baghdad. Scan this forum for reports of other sizable concentrations of troops in other parts of Iraq.
A hint. Embedded journalists with these troops have been forbidden to utilize satellite phones with GPS chips when reporting on their activities.
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