Wayward bombs bring marketplace carnage
Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad
Thursday March 27, 2003
The Guardian
The bearded militiaman knelt in the rain and used his gun to shift the earth of the bomb crater. "There is a hand still here in the ground," said Wasim al-Shinmari. "I can't touch it. I'm sorry, but I just can't touch it."
He exposed what looked like a pale lump of human flesh against the dirt, and then dissolved in sobs. "The bodies went to hospital, but the hand is here," he said.
Around him a small circle of men shouted: haram, haram - abomination. But it was unclear whether they meant the unburied human remains, or the audacity of America's bloody attack on an otherwise unremarkable suburb of Baghdad.
At least 14 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured yesterday morning when two American bombs fell out of the sky, and on to a crowded marketplace. If this was the result of precision bombing, as US and British military commanders said last night, then it wasn't precise enough.
"I saw a dozen bodies or more. They were inside the cars, outside the cars, even in the buildings," Mr Shinmari said. "Children, ladies, men... nobody had any warning."
It was the single worst act of carnage in six days of an American aerial assault on the Iraqi capital carried out by B-52 bombers, F-17 jet fighters and cruise missiles, at all hours of the day.
And, as yesterday's marketplace slaughter so clearly demonstrates, increasingly the targets are on the edges of residential areas, far away from the lavish palaces and military installations that are the institutional heart of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad
Thursday March 27, 2003
The Guardian
The bearded militiaman knelt in the rain and used his gun to shift the earth of the bomb crater. "There is a hand still here in the ground," said Wasim al-Shinmari. "I can't touch it. I'm sorry, but I just can't touch it."
He exposed what looked like a pale lump of human flesh against the dirt, and then dissolved in sobs. "The bodies went to hospital, but the hand is here," he said.
Around him a small circle of men shouted: haram, haram - abomination. But it was unclear whether they meant the unburied human remains, or the audacity of America's bloody attack on an otherwise unremarkable suburb of Baghdad.
At least 14 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured yesterday morning when two American bombs fell out of the sky, and on to a crowded marketplace. If this was the result of precision bombing, as US and British military commanders said last night, then it wasn't precise enough.
"I saw a dozen bodies or more. They were inside the cars, outside the cars, even in the buildings," Mr Shinmari said. "Children, ladies, men... nobody had any warning."
It was the single worst act of carnage in six days of an American aerial assault on the Iraqi capital carried out by B-52 bombers, F-17 jet fighters and cruise missiles, at all hours of the day.
And, as yesterday's marketplace slaughter so clearly demonstrates, increasingly the targets are on the edges of residential areas, far away from the lavish palaces and military installations that are the institutional heart of Saddam Hussein's regime.
