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Iraqis struggle to recover bodies

BAGHDAD april 8. Rescue workers dug through rubble on Tuesday to recover bodies a day after a coalition-led air strike aimed at members of the Iraqi leadership hit a well-to-do Baghdad neighbourhood.

Rescue workers said the death toll in the al-Mansour neighbourhood could reach as high as 14. It wasn't clear whether the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, the target of the powerful bombs, was dead or alive on Tuesday.

Most Baghdad residents were hunkered down in their homes and there was little traffic on the streets. For the first time since the war began, residents in the capital could see, rather than just hear, allied aircraft. A lone fighter jet flew over Baghdad, swerving, diving and at times causing a boom that rocked the city. North of the city, traffic built up as thousands of people fled the fighting in all sorts of vehicles — buses, trucks, minibuses and pickup trucks — with food, clothes, mattresses, blankets and kitchen utensils.

Some cars sagged under the weight and others were so battered they broke down on the road, worsening the already bumper-to-bumper congestion.

Long lines formed at gas stations. Some ran out of gas and closed; others were taken over by the military. Uncollected garbage piled up in some sections of the city. In western Baghdad, the extent of Monday's air strike was so extensive that steel beams from three destroyed buildings could be found 100 metres or more away. The blasts ripped orange trees out by the roots and left a heap of concrete, mangled iron rods and shredded furniture and clothes. A smoking crater was some 60-feet deep.

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