Posted on 04/26/2003 12:10:12 AM PDT by tgslTakoma
ZAAFARANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Attackers fired flares into an arms dump near Baghdad on Saturday, setting off a huge chain of explosions that wounded a U.S. soldier and also caused civilian Iraqi casualties, a U.S. officer said.
"Hostile forces fired four flares into an ammunition storage area. One of the flares ignited an explosion and that set off a chain of explosions," Captain Patrick Sullivan told Reuters at the scene at Zaafaraniya, on the outskirts of the capital.
Reuters photographer Yannis Behrakis, at the scene, said it appeared there had been considerable civilian casualties: "There's a panic here among local residents," he said.
Sullivan said the U.S. soldier was only slightly hurt and that it was not immediately clear how serious the civilian casualties were. U.S. troops blocked the road leading to the ammunition storage area.
Just after 8 a.m. local time, loud explosions were heard in central Baghdad, coming from the outskirts of the capital. They went on for at least an hour.
U.S. soldiers in the city center had earlier said the blasts were controlled detonations at an arms dump.
U.S. forces have destroyed large quantities of Iraqi munitions since taking the capital city on April 9.
Panic and anger against the US. According to CNN, they think we did this.
CNN says they're 14 civilians dead. Searching for more bodies now. Curious, CNN already has a camera crew on the scene. Citizens aren't attacking them.
ZZAAFARANIYA, Iraq - As many as 40 Iraqi civilians were killed and many badly wounded in a series of huge blasts at an arms dump on the outskirts of Baghdad on Saturday, an Iraqi medic told Reuters near the scene. US troops blamed unidentified attackers who fired flares into the munitions store. But local people turned their anger on the Americans, shooting and forcing them back, soldiers said.
Some soldiers were wounded, an Army sergeant-major told Reuters at Zaafaraniya, a mixed residential and industrial suburb on the southern edge of the capital.
Earlier, Reuters photographer Yannis Behrakis had seen furious local people throw stones at American troops.
A series of loud explosions, lasting about an hour, were heard in the city centre from about 8 a.m. (0400 GMT). US troops said they were caused by controlled detonations to destroy Iraqi munitions as part of a continuing programme.
But later at the scene, an officer told Reuters assailants hads sparked the chain reaction by firing flares into the dump.
A local medic travelling in an Iraqi civilian ambulance ferrying casualties between the blast scene and a hospital said there had been many victims.
Asked how many were killed, he replied: “Forty.”
Local people said several people were believed to be still trapped in the rubble of a wrecked building, apparently hit by an errant surface-to-surface missile from the arms storage dump.
A man who was hurt told Reuters that five people, four women and a child, were killed in the house next door to him in the Zaafaraniya suburb, on the southern edge of the capital.
“I woke up and went to have breakfast,” the injured man, who gave his name only as Mohammed.
”There was a huge explosion next to our house. Fires started all around. Explosions ripped through the neighbourhood. In the next house, four women and a child were burned to death.
”It is a big mess.”
FURY AND DESPERATION
An enraged man at the scene vented his fury at the US forces who took the capital two weeks ago: “Why, why?...The war is finished. A baby, a woman, 14 under this building,” he screamed in English.
“May God exact his revenge,” added a woman, whose head was bandaged. She was seated next to a young girl whose dress was soaked in blood from a head injury. The girl’s leg was being bandaged by a soldier.
Whatever the precise cause, the incident seemed likely to hamper US efforts to win Iraqis’ support for their presence, however pleased most people are to be rid of Saddam Hussein.
US Army Captain Patrick Sullivan, from an engineering unit, said the chain of blasts was sparked by unknown attackers.
“Hostile forces fired four flares into an ammunition storage area. One of the flares ignited an explosion and that set off a chain of explosions,” Sullivan told Reuters at the scene.
Later US Army Sergeant-Major Gary Coker told Reuters at a point some three km (two miles) from the scene that his unit had been forced to pull back because they had been fired on.
“We tried to go and help them. The people came out and shot at my men,” he said, adding that the soldiers did not return fire and that some of them had been hurt.
Desperate neighbours shaken from their beds or interrupted having breakfast dug frantically in the rubble of homes, looking for survivors amid the mud and shattered concrete.
Reuters photographer Behrakis saw a number of people bleeding heavily and one man, blackened and burned, being treated by US Army medics. He added that witnesses said some of the victims had their limbs severed or had been badly burned.
“The Americans sent troops to help the wounded but they were met by angry crowds throwing stones,” Behrakis said.
Sullivan said one US soldier was also slightly hurt in the blasts. US troops blocked the road leading to the dump.
US forces have destroyed large quantities of Iraqi munitions since taking the capital city on April 9.
Just like during the war.
...The unhappy Arabs are not Iraqis. They are people far from the scene of the conflict who wish to appear heroic at the expense of others. They wanted the Iraqis to die in large numbers so that they could compose poems...
Didn't take long at all for their hatred of anything American to override their gratitude for being freed from decades of horrific oppression, eh? Couple of weeks pass and we're blamed for everything and protested against daily as an evil occupying force.
MM
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writer
And was hardly out of breath from firing the flare gun, ditching it, and running to the scene of carnarge.
I have a hunch that the media greatly exaggerates the "anger" of the Iraqi people--just like they did with the looting. You might want to call it "wishful reporting."
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