Ammo dump blast hits Baghdad neighborhood

CNN ^ | Saturday, April 26, 2003 ,10:49 AM EDT

[demlosers]

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- A large cache of confiscated Iraqi ammunition exploded Saturday morning at a coalition-controlled military base in southern Baghdad, destroying at least four houses and killing and injuring residents.

U.S. Central Command said six Iraqis had been found dead and four were wounded, but residents of the Zafraniya neighborhood, about four miles from the city center, said at least 14 people were killed and 30 wounded.

[Smile-n-Win]

The U.S. forces, as well as the CNN crew, were forced back from the area several times, when crowds of angry Iraqis became volatile.

CNN always thinks Arabs are angry with us. No bias here...

[Smile-n-Win]

One enraged resident repeatedly yelled

OK, my mistake. Sometimes they think they're enraged.

[El Gato]

and torpedoes.

???? Torpedoes??? Iraq has no submarines, hasn't really had a Navy since the war with Iran and especially the Gulf War, and I don't believe the few patrol boats they once had were armed with torpedoes. Even if they did, what would the torpedoes be doing in an ammo dump in Baghdad, rather than someplace closer to the Gulf, like Basra or the port of Umm Qasr?

[demlosers]

Maybe the reporter meant Bangalore torpedos, although I doubt a reporter would know the difference.

[Sweetpkl]

Ok...so it's alright to place an ammo dump in a neighborhood???!!! How's about we put one in the middle of your town. IF this is true, then it was a stupid decision and the Iraqi's have every right to be angry.

[Smile-n-Win]

what would the torpedoes be doing in an ammo dump in Baghdad, rather than someplace closer to the Gulf, like Basra or the port of Umm Qasr?

Good question.

This article was obviously written by an idiot. He says, the ordnance "exploded." What kind of reporting is that? Did it explode spontaneously, was it blown up by the coalition forces controlling the base, or was it blown up by a Saddamite who snuck into the base?

Also, how come the blast killed several people in some houses, but no one at the base?

[Smile-n-Win]

The article is just fishy to me. See my post #8.

Plus, CNN does routinely use the word "angry" to describe Arab crowds. The implication being that they're angry with us, of course.

[Smile-n-Win]

Central Command also said a U.S. soldier was wounded in a firefight with "an unknown number of individuals" who attacked the forces guarding the dump and fired an "unknown incendiary device" into it, causing the explosion.

Oops, I overlooked this sentence. Still, it's just stupid to only say "exploded" in the first paragraph, and only give the cause of the explosion later. I can't help believing that the intent is to make readers think that the ordnance was blown up by coalition troops on purpose. Typical biased CNN reporting.

[demnomo]

It was the Iraqis who put the stuff there in the first place, idiot. Yeah, blame the US troops. There are hundreds, if not thousands of these ammo caches placed in schools, neighborhoods, mosques and even hospitals by the Ba'athist slime. The Coalition was disarming them as fast as possible. Sometimes we blew them up if they weren't located in residential sections. Others were being guarded until they could be safely disarmed or emptied.

I'll bet that some Ba'athist, foreign jihadist or Islamofascist scum were trying to procure more arms to harass the Coalition and cause more turmoil. (They've been doin just that for weeks now.)

Those Iraqi citizens have a right to be angry...but their anger is misplaced--not that it isn't being helped along by CNN, Reuters, and Al Jazeera who want the Coalition to fail and be blamed for everything bad that happens...

[demnomo]

OK, my bad for calling you an idiot.

The only idiots right now are the former Ba'athist slime who deliberately planted these caches in civilian areas and the sneaky jihadist foreign mercenaries who are stuck in Iraq to fight for their "holy" hero Saddam and get their reward of 72 vrigins for killing US soldiers. If a few innocent Iraqi civilians purposely die in the "martrydom" process, it's no big deal to an ignorant religious fanatic who wants his orgy in paradise.

[lilylangtree]

Appears some Saddam supporters still loose. Hope the islamic boob got killed in the explosion or at the very least hurt real bad

[demnomo]

I meant for my last apology to be aimed at Sweetpkl, not Smile n Win

[demnomo]

I hope more than one of those jihadist, Ba'athist, or whatever slime were killed. This is just their sort of thing...

[TXnMA]

Also, how come the blast killed several people in some houses, but no one at the base?

And the houses were " about 500 meters from our area."?

The article implies that it was our forces who hauled the explosives in and piled them up in one place. However, I'll bet that the truth about "a coalition-controlled military base in southern Baghdad" is that it was a former Iraqi base, and that it was the Ba'athist Iraqui government who stored the explasoves in a neighberhood -- just as they did in dozens of schools.

"Coalition-controlled military base in southern Baghdad"? Sounds like CNN still hates to accept or admit that we control the whole country!

The Communist N ews N etwork...I'll wait for someone else to publish the real truth, thank you!

[Tunehead54]

I'm only gonna say this once ... For weeks we've seen school after hospital after mosque stuffed floor to ceiling with AK 47s, RPGs, mines, cases and cases of ammo, etc, etc.

Every cache has to be checked individually for booby traps. Once a site is known it can only be guarded until its cleared. That's what we were doing when the site was attacked. One of our guys got hurt defending the site.

The Iraqis need to reveal all they know about every cache - we'll take care of them as quickly as possible but we're still dealing with a war and people in the middle can get hurt.

---

[Smile-n-Win]

The article implies that it was our forces who hauled the explosives in and piled them up in one place.

...which would make absolutely no sense at all. Our troops would either blow them up where they find them if it can be safely done, or take them out to the desert and explode them there. But the rant about "No bombs between houses" clearly implies that it was us who put them there.

CNN is hardly even trying to hide its bias these days.

[Russian Sage]

Iraq has no submarines, hasn't really had a Navy... what would the torpedoes be doing in an ammo dump in Baghdad...

Could be air launched torpedoes, although the Iraqi navy was probably more active than the air force.

[pragmatic_asian]

"One enraged resident repeatedly yelled, "Why?," shouting that women and children were among those inside the house."

Is there always a Muslim Arab around yelling 'What about the children' hysterically like the Simpson's Mrs. Lovejoy? It's either cries of massacre this, infidel that, innocent 'civilians', etc...

I read the AP account that describes the dump as a depot where the US stored some weapons from smaller caches. Still, it was in a field surrounded by a fence 500 meters from the nearest house. That article makes it look like the US stored all that stuff right next to residential homes when that's not true. The people killed were actually hit by a missile set off in the fire that resulted from flares shot into the dump. A really unfortunate result of a deliberate attack; so while the US makes a convienant target but who is really to blame here?