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RAMADI, Iraq (AP) - As survivors tell it, the wedding party was in full swing. The band was playing tribal music and the guests had just finished eating dinner when, at about 9 p.m., they heard the roar of U.S. warplanes. Fearing trouble, the revelers ended the festivities and went to bed. About six hours later, the first bomb struck the tent. "Mothers died with their children in their arms," said Madhi Nawaf, who survived the attack Wednesday in Mogr el-Deeb on the Syrian border. Up to 45 people died - mostly women and children from the Bou Fahad tribe....

U.S. Defends Desert Air Strike, Iraqis Say Wedding HitThu May 20, 2004 01:11 PM ET By Alastair Macdonald BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Grieving Iraqis said U.S. forces killed dozens of guests at a desert wedding but an American general insisted Thursday that the air strike had killed foreign guerrilla fighters and said "bad things happen in wars." Images of dead women and children on Arab television were a new setback for a U.S. mission already beset by a scandal over torture in prisons, as President Bush prepares this week to detail plans for handing limited sovereignty to Iraqis. A U.S.-backed raid...

It's an imaginary scene from World War 2, though it could have happened. Battalion headquarters gets a report over the phone from a front line sector. 'Armor moving to our front, 300 yards out bearing 75 degrees.' The information is plotted in grease pencil on a 1:10,000 map with an an acetate overlay. The position of the platoon reporting is known on the map. A protractor marks out the bearing and ruler paces of the distance. A symbol for enemy armor is drawn on the acetate. Ten minutes later, more details come in. 'Armor is three tanks'. A number is...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. military officials disputed suggestions that an American helicopter struck a wedding party in western Iraq on Wednesday and said coalition forces staged an attack against suspected foreign fighters. Arab television and The Associated Press aired video showing the bodies of small children in a truck full of bodies and people digging graves as they quoted witnesses and Iraqi officials who discussed the attack.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Pentagon officials Wednesday denied alleged eyewitness reports of a U.S. attack on a wedding party in a remote area of western Iraq that killed innocent civilians. "Our report is that this was not a wedding party, that these were anti-coalition forces that fired first, and that U.S. troops returned fire, destroying several vehicles, and killing a number of them," a Pentagon spokesman said. He was responding to a video distributed by The Associated Press showing Iraqi witnesses who said that at least 20 people were killed and five others critically wounded early Wednesday when planes fired...

U.S. Military Denies Wedding Party Attacked May 19, 2004— Arab television networks reported today that a U.S. helicopter had fired on a wedding party in western Iraq, but the U.S. military denied it. Qatar-based Al-Jazeera quoted eyewitnesses as saying that 40 people, including women and children, were killed in a predawn attack on a village near the Syrian border. The Associated Press said Iraqi officials in the nearby city of Ramadi gave the same death toll. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq, denied that U.S. forces fired on a wedding party but said the military would...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5013551/ BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. helicopter fired on a wedding party Wednesday in western Iraq, killing more than 40 people, Iraqi officials said. The U.S. military said it could not confirm the report and was investigating. advertisement Lt. Col Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of Ramadi, said between 42 and 45 people were killed in the attack, which took place about 2:45 a.m. in a remote desert area near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said the dead

More than 40 people have been killed in a US helicopter attack in Iraq, according to AP news agency. Al Arabiya television has put the death toll at more than 20 civilians. Iraqi officials have said the helicopter fired on a wedding in the west of the country. The US military said it could not confirm the report and is investigating. Lt Col Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of Ramadi, said between 42 and 45 people were killed in the attack, which took place about 2:45am in a remote desert area near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. helicopter fired on a wedding party before dawn Wednesday in western Iraq (news - web sites), killing more than 40 people, Iraqi officials said. The U.S. military said it could not confirm the report and was investigating. Lt. Col Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of Ramadi, said between 42 and 45 people were killed in the attack, which took place about 2:45 a.m. in a remote desert area near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said the dead included 15 children and 10 women. Dr. Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi,...

May 19, 2004 Release Number: 04-05-46 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE COALITION FORCES RAID SUSPECTED FOREIGN FIGHTER SAFE HOUSE NEAR SYRIAN BORDER BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At 3 a.m. May 19, Coalition forces conducted a military operation against a suspected foreign fighter safe house in the open desert, 85 km SW of Husaybah, and 25 km from the Syrian border. During the operation, Coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided. Coalition forces on the ground recovered numerous weapons, 2 million Iraqi and Syrian dinar, foreign passports, and a SATCOM radio.