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| Sunday, 30 March 2003 |
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Scores killed, maimed in Baghdad bombing, new strikes reported, Kuwait hit BAGHDAD, Saturday (AFP) Near simultaneous US-led air strikes hit the Iraqi capital and northern city of Mosul overnight after a bombing raid demolished a bustling Baghdad market, killing and maiming scores of civilians. Kuwait City, meanwhile, was hit by a missile for the first time in its history early Saturday but disaster was narrowly averted as it landed in the water and caused mainly material damage, only injuring two people lightly. Air raids on Baghda resumed Saturday morning after the latest bombing targeted a building in the main presidential palace on Friday night. Mosul was also struck, according to the Al-Jazeera television's correspondent in the northern city. US military sources also said missile launchers were targeted in overnight raids in the north of the country. The fresh bombardment came as the Iraqi capital was reeling from Friday's strike on the Al-Nasser market in northeastern Baghdad. "Most of the victims are women, children and old people," Dr Harqi Razzuqi, head of An-Nur hospital near the market, told AFP, putting the market toll at 30 dead and 47 injured, many critical. Other doctors later said as many as 52 had died in the deadliest bombardment on Baghdad since the beginning of the war to topple Saddam Hussein on March 20. Witnesses told AFP the projectile - a bomb or missile - struck as neighborhood people were doing their evening shopping at the end of the weekly day of prayer. Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Owens, spokesman for the US command headquarters directing the war on Iraq, only said the US military was "still trying to learn the truth of the matter." Washington believes a large proportion of the Iraqi population favours military action to topple Saddam and, as its troops are advancing ever closer to the capital, is keen to limit civilian casualties. A US military spokesman in Qatar said early Saturday that four US marines were listed as missing following a clash with Iraqi forces around the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. The British defence ministry announced a British soldier was killed and four others injured in a friendly fire incident in southern Iraq Friday. Out of the 23 British soldiers who died in the conflict so far, four were killed in action, five from friendly fire and 14 in helicopter accidents. The US military said Friday night that its casualty toll stood at 28, 20 of whom died in combat. In Kuwait City, a missile rocked a seafront shopping centre, causing no injuries but sending shockwaves through the Gulf country which is the main launchpad for the US-British attack on Iraq. "The ground shook like an earthquake. I immediately called 777 for emergency services and a moment later I saw huge flames," eyewitness Faisal al-Sallal told AFP. Sallal, who was jogging along the waterfront when the missile hit, described it as "green, oval-shaped, with fins". Some of the fractured remains of the missile carried writing in both Arabic and English, he said. The missile was not immediately identified but it hit Kuwait hours after the US military said its fighters targeted missile launchers in southern Iraq "to degrade Iraq's ability to strike coalition forces, the Iraqi people, or neighbouring countries." |
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