U.S. missile hits crowded market, kills 58.

story.news.yahoo.com.../ap/20030328/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_baghdad_123

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s information minister said at least 58 people were killed Friday in a crowded market in northwest Baghdad by what local officials called a coalition bombing.

The market was strewn with wreckage and there were bloodstains on a sidewalk. Crowds of mourners wailed and blood-soaked children's slippers sat on the street not far from a crater blasted into the ground.


The U.S. Central Command in Qatar said it was looking into the report. Iraqi officials have blamed U.S. forces for explosions at another market that killed 14 people on Wednesday. The Pentagon (news - web sites) had denied targeting the neighborhood.


Early Saturday, a strong explosion shook the center of Baghdad, and it appeared to be located on the west bank of the Tigris River. Many government departments are located in the area, including the Information Ministry.


Iraqi state television, meanwhile, said three Iraqis had been arrested for spying for the United States, alleging they were assigned to inspect areas of Baghdad that had been attacked to determine if they needed to be hit again.


The report identified the men as Ibrahim Abdel Qader, Ghareeb Ahmed Hamadeh and Hussein Shahed. Qader was quoted as saying he was given about two pounds of TNT from "foreigners � Americans," and Shahed said he was recruited by an American he identified as "Gen. Mike" who was from the CIA (news - web sites).


Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf said 58 people were killed in the market explosion, and said the number was likely to rise because many others were wounded. There were conflicting reports, however, on the number of casualties.


Haqi Ismail Razouq, director of al-Nour Hospital, where the dead and injured were taken, put the death toll at 30 and the number of injured at 47; surgeon Issa Ali Ilwan said 47 were killed and 50 injured. Witnesses said they counted as many as 50 bodies.


There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.


"Why do they makes mistakes like these if they have the technology?" asked Abdel-Hadi Adai, who said he lost his 27-year-old brother-in-law Najah Abdel-Rida in the blast. "There are no military installations anywhere near here."


Sahhaf said civilians were being targeted because Iraqi troops had defeated coalition forces in battles


"These are cowardly air raids," he told Lebanon's Al-Hayat LBC satellite television.


Most of the injuries were caused by shrapnel, said Dr. Ahmed Sufian.


"The women and children were screaming," he said. "We were overwhelmed. What will they hit next? This hospital?"


The Al-Nasr market is in the working-class district of al-Shoala. Witnesses said the bombing took place when the market was at its busiest, around 6 p.m. They said they saw an aircraft flying high overhead just before the blast.


The explosion left a crater the size of a coffee table on a sidewalk in front of a row of food and other shops. Curiously, nothing was blackened in the immediate surrounding area.


Water was seeping from ruptured pipes and corrugated iron was dangling from the roofs of the damaged shops.

A red Volkswagen was parked only a few yards from the crater, peppered with what could have been flying shrapnel.

At the hospital, relatives of the dead and wounded wept hysterically and yelled the names of their loved ones. Many searched for relatives or friends.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Ali Kheidir Saleh, 23, said he was in a house near the market when the blast brought down part of the house.

Another of the injured, 52-year-old construction contractor Salman Zaki Kazim, was struck by shrapnel in his hip. He was shopping for a TV antenna, accompanied by his granddaughter and son-in-law, at the time of the bombing. Neither was hurt.

At the scene of the bombing, women in black chadors were sobbing outside homes where some of the victims lived. Men cried and hugged each other and participants in a funeral procession shouted the Muslim creed, "There is no God but God," as they walked through the market.

Down the road, residents gathered at a Shiite Muslim mosque, crowded around seven wooden coffins draped in blankets. Some of the men stood silently. Others sobbed into trembling hands. In the background, women cried, "Oh God! Oh God!"

Another witness, Omar Ismail, a 35-year-old engineer who witnessed the explosion, said body parts were strewn across the street.

"Why do they hate the Iraqi people so much?" he asked.

Explosions in the capital late Thursday night and early Friday were aimed at disrupting communications between Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s leadership and his military, U.S. officials said. Airstrikes also targeted positions of the Republican Guard � Saddam's best-trained, best-equipped fighters � in a ring outside the city.

Sahhaf said the overnight airstrikes had killed seven people in Baghdad and wounded 92. The Arab television network Al-Jazeera reported eight people were killed at Baath party headquarters in bombing Friday afternoon.

The airstrikes hit at or near the Information and Planning ministries and at telephone installations � "as if government buildings are empty of human beings and there are no civilians in them," Sahhaf said.

The attack gutted a seven-story telephone exchange building in an area called Al-Alwya.

Iraqi liberation... Give me a break. But I will continue to pray for the lives lost on both sides of this war.

Why do they makes mistakes like these if they have the technology

Why indeed?

Well, using higher tech weapons, almost entirely automated, there is a higher chance of screwing up to a greater margin than something that would have been under closer "pilot" control (IE, if a cruise missle goes out of control, it can go hundreds of miles off course).

An Iraqui AA missle that missed its target? No one mentions that in air raids, at least 50% of all ground causualties are caused by AA and AAA fire that goes up and comes back down....

Intentionally detonated for public panic and to raise the ire of the public against the US. We are also hearing reports of Iraqi soldiers openly machine gunning Iraqi civilians in Basra as they attempted to evacuate, specifically to keep the civilians in town to act as shields against the coalition...

Let's look at the difference, and even you can understand this, '67.

We try and not hit civilians, even at the risk of losing our own.
The other side and those they support have little concern for their own, much less our civilians.

Who are you trying to get to cry for you? You support the sickest bastards since Hitler and Stalin and try and make us look like the evil ones.

You and your ilk ought to be dealt with, you turncoat piece of anti-American junk. Enjoy living in the Land of the Free and the Homme of the Brave, you spoiled little half-schooled juvenile. You seditious days may be numbered. America is not likely to allow little Muslims like you to run around spreading dissention in her own belly, you parasite.

Yeah, I bet it was a Scud, in "1984" Ingsoc bombed their own people, find it so hard that Saddam wouldn't do the same to his?

Even if not, it is all those jammers, the fault is completely on Saddam's head, he's trying to get our stuff to kill civilians, and to make us look bad.

Illimatic didn't write any of that crap TC, he just posted it.

The first step in avoiding a trap, is knowing it is there. Good job at revealing this propoganda crap '67

What's so sad about Thomas' post, other than the pure hatred and racism, is that he's a moderator. He's the epitome of hypocrisy and most likely all the other moderators are ashamed that he's one as well. What happened to the "take back ats.com" campaign? Yea, didn't last very long.

Thomas, I'm putting what you said to me in my signature to make sure everyone reads it and realizes what you really are, a bitch... no... Bush's bitch.

Incredible, I got all that bashing simply for posting a news article I found on yahoo.com. I fear what would happen if I posted something like Iraqi soldiers ambusing American troops.

Now Thomas, let's look at the real difference here and try to keep up with me.

There's an American and a fake American. Now I'm an American, you're a fake American, you see? An American loves his country and at the same time he criticizes it because that's HIS country. Now he wouldnt be a man unless he criticizes the country he loves. Now a fake American (you) just loves his country blindly, not knowing why. He says the dumbest things and his message is full of hatred and a racism, that's a fake American.

I have nothing to say about your post. I hope this post exposes you for what you really are.

Racism and Hatred you say. You are nothing but a hateful racist, spewing your venom throughout the world and blaming others for the destruction.

You are also an anti-American that is a threat to the nation that protects you and its true citizenry. You are the threat from within. You are not to be left alone, and it'll be seen to that the Miami office is contacted and you are not allowed to do any damage while you remain in this country.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
America is not likely to allow little Muslims like you to run around spreading dissention in her own belly, you parasite.

But they allowed little Muslims to hijack 4 airplanes, and let 3/4 crash into buildings, didn't they.

Or weren't they Muslim?

The nation is learning, changes are coming, our survival against a sneaky and cunning enemy necessitates sneaky and cunning measures. Measures that some will say violate the constitution and all that, but that is as necessary as a surgeon having to cut into flesh in order to save the body.

There is little convincing on this so far: I guess the fact that the word "stray" has been used frequently does at least suggest that many accept that the coalition is honouring its claim to be avoiding civilian casualties (of course, the degree to which that consoles the maimed and the loved ones of the dead, is open to debate).
It was abundantly clear to all but the blind or the patriotically intoxicated taht this was not going to be a re-run of the Nintendo-game war of 1992. This will be dirtier and bloodier and after our shock and indignation, perhaps we then must accept that we are not there and must therefore consider suspending our moral reservations at what our governments are doing in our name.
I sometimes think that morality in war is an oxymoron and has been since 1914.
Interestingly, arguably the bloodiest deliberate destruction of any city was the recapture of Manila by the US (Filipinos then were, of course, effectively almost Americans). Griswold ( the US general looking after the actual fighting while the dreadful MacArthur was having his dress uniforms cleeaned and pressed) was faced with recapturing the city in a long street-war campaign against crack Japanese troops. Also, political pressure meant that he had to move fast.
He made teh simple decision that, rather than risk American lives, he would flatten the place with bombs and artillery: and he did. And he saved thousands of US lives while killing almost 100,000 Filipinos. It may be said that they might have died anyway; that it was the Japs' fault, etc. blah...yawn.
I mention this only as a reminder that (clich� though it may be) war is hell and may have, therefore, no morality beyond "kill or be killed"
Certainly, I find it hard to mesh my own principles of morality with my awareness that wars are meant to be won: probably by any means. Morality seems to stop when war begins, and civilians at home and the soldiers at the front have lttle or nothing in common.

Measures that some will say violate the constitution and all that, but that is as necessary as a surgeon having to cut into flesh in order to save the body. Posted by Thomas Crowne

The problem with this is that once a right is taken away, if is extremely difficult, if not impossible to restore... The more secure you make a state, the more of a police state that you create.

I for one do not look forward to living in such a police state just so that I can say I am secure.... I may be an old fashioned redneck, but I much prefer the world where responsible people learn to take care of themselves in a responsible manner, and are allowed to do so with an absolute minimum of government intrusion into thier lives.

Thomas, I think there's a bit of Plato in you. His "Republic" had similar notions to yours: that people needed help in looking after themselves, even if they didn't like it.

GWB as a "philosopher king"? Intriguing.

I haven't heard anyone even mention the possibility that it wasn't a coalition missle, but rather an Iraqi bombing whether intentional or deliberate. This is quoted from Fox News, just a possibility:
"The spokesman also said new, unspecified intelligence indicated that U.S. and British bombing may not have been to blame for explosions in two marketplaces in Baghdad this week.
"Many Iraqi surface-to-air missiles "have been malfunctioning and many have failed to hit their targets and have fallen back onto Baghdad before exploding."

www.foxnews.com...


P.S. I guess I'm the only one that gets reprimanded for copying and pasting entire news articles.

[Edited on 30-3-2003 by ProudAmerican]

Thank you Proud American, I had my doubts as well, but I guess some people are too stupid to realize this war has been a cake walk, even more so than in '91. Estragon I'm looking in your direction.

xmb.abovetopsecret.com...

In this thread I mentioned the armament codes written on the side of the missile that killed these 58 people. Looks like it's a US missile to me... I also linked to an article that talked about the strike. There was no AA fire for 4 days before this incident, and there are lots of eyewitnesses who remember hearing a plane fly overhead... this is the reality of warfare.

5POF - Everyone expected this to be a cakewalk. But we were lead to believe it would be over in a week or two, that we'd be greeted with open arms, that the regular conscript army would give up, and that whole units of republican guard would do the same. It hasn't happened, therefore this is a failure in terms of military intelligence. Also, this is still a cakewalk, but it's possible that we might be bringing as many as 1000 dead troops home. That wasn't supposed to happen...

[Edited on 31-3-2003 by dom]

nor over in a few days. It is a logistical impossibility to invade and hold a country the size of Iraq in a few days, even when it is the US. I'll admit that the press did kind of put this spin on it, and likewise, the administration (as usual) were fools to not deny this assessment, but I doubt that any halfway intelligent person expected this to be over in a week or two....

As for the market explosion...in the past, we have usually owned up to it when our bombs go awry. That hasn't happened here. We already know Saddam dresses some of his soldiers in US garb to commit attrocities, that are then shown on arab tv. There is no doubt in my mind, that this man would also do such things to his own people (i.e. Harabja), and use stockpiled US arms to boot. No, something smells here.... Unfortunately, such incidents will continue I'm betting, as he becomes more desparate.

His whole strategy is one of waiting out world opinion until the US can no longer politically fight this war...through ANY means necessary. It is a rather clever strategy actually, but one we should not let work.

I'm sorry, but bits of shrapnel with US armament codes on count as fairly good evidence to me. The date was 1996, so it wasn't stockpiled bomb debris from the Gulf War, used to spike the site. It's possible it was carried from another GW2 bomb site... but with no AA fire for a few days before hand, I don't believe the explosion was an artillery shell. Could be a SAM then, but overall I'd say that finger of suspicion is firmly pointing across the atlantic on this latest one.

The first market bombing had similar reports of no AA fire for some time in advance, although there was no definitive shrapnel at the site. However, two craters indicates that this isn't an accidental SAM drop either.

And I thought Cheney and Perle had both said things about this war being over in weeks? We're definitely getting the impression over here that the US/UK underestimated the level of resistance.

Not to dispute you, but I've never heard of such a thing... As an amateur, even I could see that the logistics of that would be impossible... If you have a link I'd love to see it...

Admittedley, I am not an expert on US armament serial numbers, etc. Again, if you have a link, I'd love to read it. (NM, I see the other thread now...thank you) If it did go awry, that's one thing... If we aren't owning up to it...THAT's where the problem is...

Collateral damage WILL happen, things WILL go off target. However, unlike the enemy, we ARE and have been, taking steps to minimize it as much as possible.

[Edited on 31-3-2003 by Gazrok]