|
Over 50 Iraqis Killed in Fresh Explosions
BAGHDAD,
September 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - At least 50
people were killed, most of them children, and scores wounded in a
string of car bombings in and around Baghdad and in fresh US strikes
Thursday, September 30, medics and the US occupation forces said.
“We
have 41 dead -- three men and one woman, and the rest were
children,” Naji Shitshan, director of the morgue at the capital's
Yarmuk hospital, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Most
of the casualties in the latest attacks at about 1 pm (0900 GMT) were
children who had gathered to watch ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new
water pumping station in a working class district in the southwest of
Baghdad.
It
was not clear if the event or a US convoy passing nearby was the
target, The Associated Press said, quoting the US military as saying
ten American soldiers were wounded in the attack, two of them
seriously.
Almost
simultaneously, another car bomb went off near an Iraqi national guard
checkpoint about one kilometer (half a mile) south of the water
pumping station.
Vast
clouds of black smoke billowed into the air above the site of the
attacks, which were quickly closed off by US and Iraqi forces.
A
witness who identified himself as Abu Sufian said he helped pull out
the corpses of 32 children from the rubble.
He
said the first car bomb was followed by the firing of an anti-tank
missile just before the second explosion, adding that he saw a US
military convoy passing by at the time of the blasts.
The
Iraqi health ministry said 60 people were wounded from the first car
bomb which occurred at 9:45 am (0545 GMT) between Baghdad and Abu
Ghraib to the west.
In
northern Iraq, another car bomb blew up near an Iraqi police convoy in
the center of Tal Afar. Hospital officials said four civilians had
been killed and 16 wounded. Four policemen were also hurt.
Fallujah
Casualties
 |
|
Among the wreckage of a house destroyed by US air strikes in Fallujah (AFP)
|
Meanwhile,
four people were killed and six wounded when US warplanes early
Thursday carried out a raid on Fallujah west of Baghdad, the hospital
officials in the town said.
“We
have received three dead and six wounded,” doctor Al-Hakim
Al-Badrani of the Fallujah General Hospital said, according to AFP.
The
US Army said in a communiqué, without mentioning victims, it had
targeted a “terrorist safe house” of the group led by Islamist Abu
Musab Al-Zarqawi.
However,
sources in the city told Al-Jazeera that the deaths comprise one man,
his wife and two of their children.
In
a separate attack, four children were killed when the car they were
traveling in came under fire from US forces, whereby the driver lost
control and the car fell into a stream near Fallujah, the Associated
Press reported.
Eye
witness, Hussein Alwan, said that the US military personnel stopped
locals from assisting the drowning people, leading to the death of the
four children along with two other women travelling in the car, the
American news agency added.
The
wounded driver was later rescued. The US military media liaison
personnel said in Baghdad that they were unaware of any such incident.
A
feeling of tension is dominating Fallujah due to US military strikes
against residential areas of the 300,000-populated city, the
Qatar-based channel added on its website. The US air strikes are
almost daily occurrences.
“I
want to send a message to (US President George W.) Bush and (Iraqi
Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi, these houses shelled are not of
militants, as they claim, but of civilians,” one local resident told
Al-Jazeera.
On
Saturday, September 25, at least eight civilians were killed and up to
20 others wounded in a fresh US onslaught into Fallujah.
On
September 18, Amnesty International blasted the US for its barbaric
raids on the city.
US
Soldiers Killed
 |
|
US forces had their own share of blood as well
|
Earlier,
one US soldier and two Iraqi policemen were killed in a car bombing
west of Baghdad that also wounded 10 Iraqis and three US soldiers.
Also,
a car bomb blast wounded four US soldiers near a US military base in
Baghdad Thursday, a US military spokesman said.
“There
was a vehicle-borne explosive device detonated near a multinational
forward operating base about a half hour ago,” said Major Philip
Smith of the 1st Cavalry Division.
“Four
soldiers were wounded, and one military vehicle damaged, that's what
we have now.”
Another
foreign soldier whose nationality was not immediately known was killed
in a rocket attack on a US military support base near Baghdad, the US
military said.
“A
122 millimeter rocket detonated, killing one multi-national force
soldier and wounding seven. No further information is available at
this time,” it said in a statement.
|
