March 27, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 23, 1424

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BAGHDAD, March 26: Two blasts devastated a busy Baghdad street on Wednesday, killing up to 15 people and sparking fury among crowds of Iraqis, after what witnesses said was a twin US missile attack.

“There are at least 15 killed and some 30 injured. Two missiles hit the street,” said Haneed Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi defence unit for the district.

Witnesses at the scene said the death toll was likely to be higher. Bodies were littered on the ground and in the smouldering wreckage cars. A pregnant woman was among the dead.

The US first expressed ignorance of the incident, but late in the night acknowledged it might have killed some civilians.

A statement by the US Central Command in Qatar said coalition warplanes used precision-guided weapons to attack nine Iraqi surface-to-surface missiles and launchers that were placed in a residential neighbourhood of Baghdad.

“Most of the missiles were positioned less than 300 feet (90 metres) from homes,” said the statement. It made no direct mention of deaths in the text, but the headline said: “Civilian damage possible.”

Mr Dulaimi said there were no military facilities in the area.

Crowds of enraged Iraqis carried bloody bodies away, yelling slogans in support of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and denouncing US President George Bush.

“We will sacrifice our blood and souls for you, Saddam,” they chanted. “Down with Bush!”

Fire engines and ambulances raced to the scene, as flames spewed from an oil tanker and a fierce sandstorm whipped choking dust through the area.

Residents said the missiles hit the busy street, which is lined by ground-floor shops and restaurants beneath residential apartment blocks.

Salah Aziz, a resident of the street, stood dazed beside the ruins of the building where he had lived with his family. “I don’t know where to go,” he said. “I haven’t got anywhere else.”

Emad Ali, an Egyptian with a restaurant in the street, said three of his waiters had been killed. “Luckily there were no customers at the time of the attack or more people would have died,” he said.

US military officials said they were investigating.

Asked if US bombs or missiles could have caused the blasts, US spokesman Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks told a Central Command briefing in Qatar: “We don’t know that they were ours. We can’t say that we had anything to do with that.”

He acknowledged that “mistakes can occur”, but said it was too early to know whether US forces had hit the wrong target.

“Right now we simply don’t know,” he said.

Iraqi and Arab television stations broadcast footage of the aftermath of the attack, showing bloodied corpses and angry crowds — images likely to stir outrage in the Arab world.

The United States and Britain, facing strong international opposition, say they have taken great care to avoid civilian targets.

They have pounded targets in and around Baghdad with repeated air raids since the war began last Thursday, but say they are using precision-guided weapons to try to hit only military targets.

Heavy air raids targeted the southern outskirts of Baghdad throughout the day on Wednesday. President Saddam’s trusted Republican Guards are believed to be dug in on the southern flank of the city to defend it against invading US and British forces.

One dawn strike hit the area of Baghdad where the information ministry and television station are situated.

The United States said it had targeted Iraqi television and satellite communications in an effort to damage President Saddam’s ability to control the country. But Iraqi state television and radio were broadcasting as usual.

IRAQI STATEMENT: Iraq’s military said on Wednesday its forces had destroyed a British helicopter, 11 tanks and 12 armoured personnel carriers over the past 24 hours and inflicted large numbers of dead and wounded.

The communique vowed that Iraqi resistance to the US-led invasion would stiffen in the near future.

“The coming days will be more difficult and harsher on them. By God they have no way out of this deadly trap except to admit defeat and flee,” said the 18-page statement, which was also read on Iraqi state television.

It also reported the first engagement of the elite Republican Guards in the fighting since the war started seven days ago.

“After the invaders received painful blows from the sons of Iraq, now is the turn of the heroic elite divisions of the men of difficult missions, the men of the great leader Saddam Hussein, the heroes of the Republican Guards...At dawn today they carried out their first devastating operations inflicting fear and panic in the hearts of the enemy.”

The statement also said missile units fired 38 surface-to-surface missiles at enemy positions and reported direct hits.

NORTHERN FRONT: Warplanes pounded forward Iraqi positions in the north of the country on Wednesday as US efforts to open a second, limited front gathered pace.

Five large explosions threw up plumes of black smoke on the hilltops overlooking Chamchamal, a town in the Kurd-controlled Iraqi enclave wrested from Baghdad after the 1991 war.

Local Kurds cheered after each explosion. Kurdish “peshmerga” fighters looked on from a high point in the town.

But a Kurdish commander controlling the area around Chamchamal, which lies 35kms east of the key oil city of Kirkuk which Saddam controls, said the Americans needed to do more to rout the Iraqi forces effectively.

“I don’t like this kind of attack,” Mam Rostam said minutes after the bombing ended. “It needs to be much heavier if they want to bring a swift end to this war.”

In Kalak, some 40kms east of the city of Mosul, a correspondent saw four large explosions strike Iraqi government lines on a hilltop.

“These are the first daytime raids we have seen so close to Kalak,” said Soheil Afdjei, adding that four thick columns of smoke rose above the target area.

A single jet could be heard flying in cloud overhead.

Mosul also came under attack, with five explosions being heard from the city.

“There’s a big column of black smoke rising into the sky,” an eyewitness said, adding that there was no sign of anti-aircraft fire.

The increased presence of US forces in the Kurdish zone, and escalating bombardment of frontlines and the nearby cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, appear to be part of attempts by the United States to open a second front against Iraq.

But after Turkey’s parliament blocked permission for over 60,000 US troops to enter northern Iraq, it is unclear how much of a threat they can pose to the Iraqi forces in the north.

Rostam said he knew of no plans for “peshmergas” to cross the frontline and launch an offensive from his area.

He added there had been a total of seven attacks since Tuesday night, hitting hilltops bunkers and positions 15kms west at Qarahanjir.

To the east, not far from the Iraq-Iran border, US warplanes continued to bomb areas held by the radical Ansar al-Islam group accused by Washington of links to Al Qaeda.

Khosraw Mohammad, head of security for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan which shares control of northern Iraq with another Kurdish group, said the attacks had come in at least four waves in the 24 hours starting early on Tuesday.

But a “peshmerga”-led ground assault expected this week had yet to begin, he told reporters in the city of Sulaimaniya.

“Our expectation is that the aerial bombardment (of Ansar) will be continued,” he said.

He added that two Ansar fighters killed in a skirmish on Monday had been identified by two prisoners in PUK custody as Arabs who had trained in Afghanistan and who had links to Al Qaeda. He did not produce evidence to back up the charge.

Ansar, believed to number several hundred fighters, is blamed for a string of attacks on Kurdish targets and is said to have been behind a suicide bombing at a checkpoint near Halabja last week that killed several people, including a Western journalist.—Reuters