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."
"Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character."
Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)
I am so angry at CNN I could spit. I watched their "report" on this tragedy. It is infuriating.
They started out by telling us how the Iraqis are "furious at the Americans, and that Iraqis had warned the US troops days ago the ammo dump was in a residential area."
Then they showed an Iraqi man screaming (IN ENGLISH) that it was the Americans fault this thing blew up.
Only later did they show an American soldier say the Iraqis fired a flare at the ammo dump, and CNN reported it in such a way as to frame the Americans as being deceptive.
It has been 2 days since CNN founder Ted Turner labled Robert Murdoch as a "war mongerer." I think it is high time to label CNN and their employees as propganda criminals in league with mayhem, terror, and war crimes. By CNN's own admission, they have been in complicity with Saddam's reign of terror for over a decade. To enable the terrorists who ignited this ammo dump (that injured killed innocent children) is akin to complicity in the crime itself.
CNN has already show it's true colors. We cannot depend on the UN or the Hague to hold these people accountable. The US and British should ban CNN from Iraq--the grounds being they are enablers to terrorists in their propaganda war--which is outside their rights as journalists and against the Geneva Convention and the Internatioal Code of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). The Coalition of the Willing should set the example that if you are there to propagandize for terrorists--you will be exposed and punished.
I have a question for you. Do you think it is feasable, with this new development, to have enough Probable Cause to arrest Ted Turner for War Crimes??.... [HUGE Evil Vietnam Vet Grin] It should also be, in the scheme of things, time to knock 'ol Hanoi Jane off the pedestal as well.arrest her too..would have been a LONG time coming, but oh so satisfying.
Keep the Faith for Freedom
Greg
Don't lump them all together. Most of these loud ones are foreign agents. The noisy demonstrating ones are on their own campaign to destabilize the region and institute their own version of utopia. They are taking advantage of the situation whenever possible and sound exactly like the "No Blood for Oil" crowd over here. They are there and have nothing better to do. Either arrest them all or accept their presence at every photo op.
Here is one suggestion: have the Pentagon's ace spokesperson (Torrie Clark) thrown down the gauntlet to CNN on camera, and challenge them about what they are doing. These bastards are still trying to SPIN SPIN SPIN their way out of the Eason Jordan fiasco. They are on their heels more than even they realize.
I say go after the cowards...I predict they will exhibit as much testicular fortitude as Tariq Aziz.
Watching the events unfold on FOX News would be uplifting.
Greg
"We're overwhelmed with information," says one Pentagon official. "It's going to take a long time to go through it all."
That process is just now beginning--a fact that is surely rattling nerves around the world.
IRAQ IS WINNING the battles in the propaganda war with a modest media strategy, despite a multi-million dollar U.S. campaign featuring painstakingly choreographed briefings and Hollywood-style sets. Undeterred by America's elaborate media plan, Iraq is making its mark on the airwaves with its decidedly basic approach, media pundits say, and list their latest claims of conquest, sometimes wielding chrome-plated Kalashnikovs. Unlike America and its allies, theirs is a simple message delivered directly: "We will defeat the infidel invaders."
This article details how journalists and editors around the world were bribed by Saddam and his regime—for years---with cars, cash, gifts, and blackmail. In regards to this barbaric regime that has tortured thousands and murdered millions, it is time to get the truth about what CNN and other media knew, and when they knew it.
Greg
Good thing there's no snow on the ground in Baghdad.
Iraqi militants fire flares into an Iraqi military ammunition dump resulting in the death of some Iraqi civilians.
And it is the U.S. military's fault?
What do you expect from people who just had their friends, family members and neighbors blown up?...do you expect them to be reasonable and rational about the big picture about how their country is really much better off now?
The Americans are the only authority in the country now...it should be no surprise that they catch blame for something like this.
In any case...outside of the locals who were personally affected by this tragedy....the military says most Iraqis know they are there to help and are grateful.
Flare gets down in a pile of those and things are gonna start to cook off......the rest is iceing on the cake per se !
Just My SWAG from the recliner of course !!.........
Stay Safe !
| Sun Apr 27,10:13 AM ET | 14 of 348 |
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An Iraqi man sits in despair in the ruins of his house April 27, 2003, at Zaafaraniya on the outskirts of Baghdad. A powerful blast which the U.S. military said was caused by unknown attackers firing an incendiary device into an Iraqi munitions store at Zaafaraniya killed several Iraqi civilians on Saturday. Local residents said U.S. troops had packed cars with confiscated weapons and detonated them at the site. The Americans denied this. REUTERS/Petr Josek |
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