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| Iraqis Rally Against U.S. Occupation After Deadly |
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| a_Silver_Rose |
| 04/26/03 at 17:31:56 |
| Iraqis Rally Against U.S. Occupation After Deadly Blasts Iraqis’ fury at U.S. forces is growing by the hour BAGHDAD, April 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Hundreds of angry residents from a Baghdad district, where dozens of civilians died Saturday, April 26, when a stash of Iraqi weapons exploded, rallied in the center of the capital against U.S. forces. "No, no to America, yes, yes to Islam!" chanted the demonstrators from Baghdad's Zaafaraniya district, carrying banners accusing U.S. troops of negligence for dumping the weapons in a residential neighborhood, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). "The Americans are killing Iraqis with the weapons of Saddam Hussein," one banner charged, while another denounced "Arms placed among civilians". A Shiite religious leader, Sheikh Khaled Shomari, warned U.S. forces against repeating such "crimes against the lives of innocents" and pointed to a truck that had borne the corpses of six victims of the blasts. U.S. troops were stoned by a crowd when they first reached the site and began taking victims to local hospitals, according to the BBC online news service. Hundreds of people waved their fists at U.S. troops as they were evacuated from the area. "This is the responsibility of the U.S. army because we told them this is a civilian area," one man told BBC. In one truck, people chanted, "America's no better than Saddam". A large crowd also gathered outside the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad, with banners saying "American forces kill the innocent" and "No bomb between houses". U.S. soldiers guarding the Palestine Hotel, where most of the international press corps is staying, kept demonstrators at bay with barbed wire. Family Of Six Killed Mourning the victims of the blasts At least six members of a single family were killed when a stash of Iraqi weapons guarded by U.S. troops exploded in Baghdad, setting off a hail of rockets that flattened their house and buried them inside. Witnesses described a grisly scene of blood-spattered bodies being pulled from the wreckage as residents were starting what was supposed to be a week of hope amid efforts to rebuild the devastated Iraqi capital. "I saw three dead women with my own eyes. One of my friends was killed. They pulled him out of the building covered with blood," said a distraught Ahmed Khilal, 18. Shaker Mahmoud Nasser, the emergency surgeon at the Rashid military hospital, said: "I have six bodies but I was told that there are between 11 and 14 dead." He said around 30 were wounded. The six dead were all from the family of Khazal Saber, doctors said. The victims were between 20 and 50 years old. "Does God accept this?" said Thamer, the family's eldest son, weeping inconsolably at the hospital. "We kept telling the Americans not to store explosives so close by. What happened? Why didn't they listen to us?" Relatives said three family members were still missing. During the war to topple Saddam Hussein, the United States repeatedly accused his regime of hiding military targets in civilian areas. The latest deaths quickly inflamed tensions already high over the chaos in Baghdad. U.S. Blames Blast On Sabotage On the other hand, the Americans blamed the carnage on sabotage, declining to give any further details. "Someone shot a flare into this disposal site and caused this huge explosion," said Major Frank McClary of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division. "It is sabotage." He declined to give a casualty toll, AFP reported. “We don't want to speculate on what caused the explosion," said U.S. Colonel John Peabody. "There was some kind of flammable material that was introduced by outside forces." A U.S. soldier, Specialist Kevin Braahm, told AFP: "It has been confirmed that the U.S. military did not cause the explosions. There were people on guard at the time that saw somebody shoot a flare or something. It was not U.S. military." He added: "There was a lot of ammo there." "An unknown number of individuals attacked U.S. 3rd Infantry Division soldiers who were guarding a cache of captured Iraqi ammunition near Baghdad this morning," the U.S. Central Command in Qatar (Centcom) said in a statement. "During the attack, the assailant fired an unknown incendiary device into the cache, causing it to catch fire and explode. The explosion caused the destruction of the cache as well as a nearby building," Centcom said. Centcom blamed the now ousted Saddam Hussein government. "The location of the ammunition cache near a civilian population is another example of the former regime's disregard for the safety of Iraqi citizens," Centcom said. |
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