Posted on 04/19/2003 7:29:13 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
FOUR US soldiers on patrol and an Iraqi girl were wounded when the girl handed them a bomb and it exploded, American military officials said.
They said they believed it was an accident.
None of the injuries was life-threatening, said Colonel Michael Linnington, commander of the 101st Airborne's 3rd Brigade, the wounded soldiers' unit.
One soldier's leg was amputated. The girl, who appeared to be about seven years old, suffered a hand injury and was taken away by her family, apparently to a hospital. US forces were searching for her tonight to make sure she was safe.
Linnington said the girl approached one of the soldiers with an M-42 "bomblet", a canister-sized piece of a cluster bomb.
"As she handed it to him, it went off," Linnington told The Associated Press.
The wounded soldiers' names were not immediately released.
Linnington said there were "some remnants" of American ordnance still around Baghdad. He said an Iraqi man was killed yesterday and three soldiers from the 101st were wounded when an M-42 "bomblet" exploded under similar circumstances.
Residents of the Dura neighbourhood in south-eastern Baghdad have been trying to negotiate their way through what appear to be US cluster pieces scattered through the area, including some found hanging in trees.
Human rights groups have criticised Americans' use of cluster bombs. They contain 200 or more small bombs, each of which can explode into hundreds of metal fragments.
Many fail to explode on impact, and opponents stress the need to deal with the dangers that unexploded ones pose to civilians.
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