Wedding party video contradicts US denials

A VIDEO has captured a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by US warplanes, killing up to 45 people.

The bride arrives in a white pick-up truck and is quickly ushered into a house by a group of women. Outside, men recline on brightly-coloured silk pillows, relaxing on the carpeted floor of a large tent as boys dance to tribal songs.

The video was obtained yesterday by Associated Press Television News. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended on Tuesday night before the planes struck.

The US military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safe house for foreign fighters.

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the chief US military spokesman in Iraq, said on Saturday.

"There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations too."

But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans, and brightly-coloured beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed-out tent.

An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video.

Brig Gen Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although a "handful of women" perhaps four to six were "caught up in the engagement".

However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial on Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed. Survivors say the bride and groom also died.