The Hindu : U.S. Marines come under heavy fire

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Wednesday, Apr 02, 2003

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U.S. Marines come under heavy fire

An Iraqi grieves over the body of his mother in Hilla in the southern province of Babylon on Tuesday. He lost 15 members (including six children) of his family as his car was bombed by coalition helicopters while fleeing al-Haidariyeh towards Babylon. -- AFP

IN SOUTH-CENTRAL IRAQ APRIL 1. Iraqi forces fired artillery, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the United States forces in and around Diwaniyah, 120 km southeast of the capital, Baghdad, amid a fierce fire-fight with U.S. Marines on Tuesday, according to field reports.

At least 75 Iraqis were killed in fighting on Diwaniyah's outskirts and at least 44 soldiers, including some Republican Guard officers, were taken prisoner. There were no reports of American casualties. Northeast of Diwaniyah, there was heavy bombing near Kut to clear the way for ground forces, a Marine intelligence analyst said. Marine ground forces have also secured an airbase at Qalat Sukkar, southeast of Kut, a staging ground.

Overnight, warplanes struck at Iraqi positions around Karbala and Hindiyah, about 80 km from Baghdad, in a U.S. effort to open the way for the invasion of Baghdad.

In Baghdad, the Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, said 56 persons were killed and 268 wounded overnight, including 24 dead in Baghdad. He said nine children, including an infant, were killed on Tuesday morning in the town of Hillah, about 80 km south of the capital. "They are racist. So they are indiscriminately killing people," Mr. al-Sahhaf said. "Hillah is my hometown. It is a civilian place. Iraqis are resisting the mercenaries of the occupation by all means, through fidayeen action, martyrdom, ambushes and direct confrontation by all means possible."

Late on Monday night, American soldiers shot and killed at least seven Iraqi women and children travelling in a van at a checkpoint along Route 9, near Najaf, in southern Iraq. A U.S. general expressed regret over the incident but said civilian deaths were "unavoidable" in war. The U.S. military said the soldiers, from the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, opened fire when the driver of the van failed to stop as ordered. A Washington Post reporter at the scene said 10 Iraqis in all were killed, including five young children.

Elsewhere, 15 members of a family were killed when their pickup was blown up by a rocket from an Apache helicopter near Hilla, south of Baghdad, the sole survivor of the attack told AFP today.

The family was fleeing fighting between the Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition in An Nasiriyah, 350 km south of Baghdad, when the U.S. helicopter fired on the jeep. Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaj showed an AFP photographer the coffins he said held the bodies of his wife, his six children, his father, mother and three brothers and their wives. "Which one of them should I cry on," he asked before throwing sand in his face "so I don't have to see" the remains of his 15 relatives before him.

Briefing reporters at the Central Command headquarters in Qatar, the U.S. Brigadier-General, Vincent Brooks, said the coalition forces had to maintain a state of heightened alert after the suicide attack that killed four Americans.

"In all cases in checkpoints and otherwise we maintain the right to self-defence." "While we regret the loss of civilian lives, they remain unavoidable," he said.

In Riyadh, the Saudi Foreign Minister said the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, should make the sacrifice of stepping down if it would end the war. The remark provoked a sharp rebuke from Iraq.

At a news conference in Baghdad, the Iraqi Vice-President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, responded with a rebuke directed at Prince Saud: "Go to hell."

Bush blames it on Saddam

In Washington, the U.S. President, George W. Bush, regretted the deaths of Iraqi civilians, but placed the blame for such tragedies squarely on the shoulders of Saddam Hussein and his regime, according to the White House.

``The President always regrets any innocent loss of life. And he recognises that most innocents have been lost in this war at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen," said the spokesman, Ari Fleischer. ``That's who is to blame for the loss of innocent lives.''

Mr. Fleischer declined to comment on an incident a day earlier in which U.S. troops killed seven women and children when they opened fire on a civilian vehicle at a checkpoint.

``The specific point that you're raising, about the checkpoint, that is a matter that DOD (the Department of Defence) is looking into, and the President knows that," he told reporters. — AP, AFP

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