Market day massacre

IRAQIS said more than 50 people were killed yesterday in an air raid on a Baghdad market after the United States unleashed some of the heaviest air strikes of the war on the capital.

In Baghdad, Dr Osama Sakhari at Al Noor Hospital said he had counted 55 people killed and more than 47 wounded in the air raid on the market in the city’s Shula neighbourhood.

Earlier, US defence officials said a radar-avoiding B-2 stealth bomber had dropped two earth-shattering 4,600-pound bombs on a communications centre in downtown Baghdad.

It was the first use of the so-called “bunker-busters” on Baghdad since the war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein began nine days ago.

Playing on US and British fears of being sucked into bloody street battles, Iraq swore to fight on and promised “living hell” for the invaders.

Many Iraqis converged on mosques for prayers, enraged rather than cowed by the US bombardment.

“You can see and hear the missiles and bombs raining down on us and yet Muslims are coming to the house of God to pray,” said the preacher at the “Mother of All Battles” Mosque.

Iraq’s Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said overnight raids on the capital had killed seven civilians and wounded 92. Witnesses said eight more people were killed when a Baghdad office of the ruling Ba’ath Party was demolished in a later raid. Both tolls were given before the deaths at the market. Mr al-Sahaf also said US forces had used cluster bombs against the Shi’ite shrine city of Najaf, killing 26 civilians and wounding 60.

In the ground war, an American officer said US forces had fought around 1,500 Iraqis overnight near Najaf, 100 miles south of the capital, but he had no word on casualties.

The US reported four Marines missing near Nassiriya to the south.

The columns seemed in no hurry to get closer than that.

But Britain’s Army chief, Mike Jackson, dismissed suggestions the campaign had become bogged down.

“Armies cannot keep moving forever without stopping from time to time to regroup, to ensure their supplies are up,” he said.

But Britain’s Army chief, Mike Jackson, dismissed suggestions the campaign had become bogged down.

“Armies cannot keep moving forever without stopping from time to time to regroup, to ensure their supplies are up,” he said.

After chaotic scenes of Iraqis struggling to grab scarce supplies of food and water, the first aid ship docked in the southern port of Umm Qasr.

In New York, the UN Security Council voted to approve using billions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenues to buy food and medicine in a bid to avert a humanitarian crisis.