Iraqi town left devastated as questions arise over bodies
uploaded 03 Dec 2003SAMARRA, Dec 1: The centre of the Iraqi town of Samarra wears a devastated look after ambushes of US troops on Sunday sparked a massive response in which the military claimed 54 guerillas were killed , but the only bodies were of eight civilians, according to the local hospital.
Challenged about what had happened to the bodies of the 54 militants said to have been killed, Brig Gen Kimmitt of the US Army said on Monday: "I would suspect that the enemy would have carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base was."
Asked about reports from senior police and hospital officials in the town of eight civilians killed and dozens more wounded, he insisted: "We have no such reports whether from medical authorities or police.
"We don't have any reports of collateral damage or killing or wounding of innocent civilians. If we get these reports, they will be included in the investigation."
In Sammara, Captain Andy Deponai said the attacking force had been split into two groups of "anything from 30 to 40 individuals at each bank site". "They split down to team- and squad-size elements so they could attack from all sides," he said. "They had pre-prepared explosives and improvised explosives on our route which we took into the city."
Samarra's police chief, Colonel Ismail Mahmud Mohammed, said the guerillas who attacked the US forces, wounding five soldiers and a civilian according to a US toll, had withdrawn by the time the Americans returned fire.
Anguished residents, including middle-aged men, could be seen hugging each other in grief after the carnage on the streets, which tribal leaders warned would only increase support for Washington's foes in the mainly Sunni town. Graffiti expressing support for Saddam Hussein covered the walls of the city after the prolonged bombardments.
Two Iranians making the pilgrimage to the city's Al Askariya shrine were killed when their bus came under fire just 30 metres from the main hospital, police said. Another nine were wounded.
Samarra hospital accident and emergency department anaesthetist Bassem Ibrahim said "we received the bodies of eight civilians, including a woman and a child".
Hospital director Abed Tawfiq said "more than 60 people wounded by gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated at the hospital". Colonel Mohammad said around 20 of the wounded sustained their injuries while worshipping at a mosque during sunset prayers.
The impact of a rocket could be seen on one of the outer walls of the Al-Shafii mosque, some 50 metres from the hospital. Its windows had been shattered by the blast.
Ali Abdullah Amin, 12, who was being treated at the hospital for shrapnel wounds to the stomach and leg sustained at the mosque, said his father had been killed and his five-year-old brother lightly injured in the firing.
At the hospital, Fleikh Hassan mourned his 22-year-old son Sabah. Two other sons - Rashid, 18, and Fares, 32 - were both in comas. "We were in the garden, it was 4:00 pm (1300 GMT) and a shell landed in our garden," said their grief-stricken father.
There were also civilian casualties at the State Enterprise for Drugs Industries and Medical Appliances, where on Sunday evening a witness saw blood on the ground outside the factory gates before being forced to withdraw amid heavy mortar fire.
Shrapnel was later discovered lodged in the correspondent's car, just millimetres from the petrol tank. "A company bus that ferries employees to and from work was hit by a US rocket just outside the factory gates," said the firm's administrative affairs director, Hassan Yassin, 54.
"A woman who was sitting just behind the driver was killed when the rocket came through the side window." Sheikh Qahtan Hajj Salem of the town's tribal council warned that the violence of the response would backfire against US troops. "The US reponse to this attack can only strengthen the resistance," he said. The sheikh added that the tribal council had decided to ask the Americans to "leave the town, to pull out completely from the built-up area."
Source: AFP
