Pentegon denies targeting Baghdad market

Two cruise missiles struck a residential area in Baghdad today, killing 14 people, Iraqi defence officials said. It was the worst reported instance of civilian deaths since the bombing campaign began a week ago.

Thirty others were reported injured in the attack, which occurred at midday in the busy northern Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Shaab.

US Central Command in Qatar said in a statement that US aircraft used “precision-guided weapons” to target Iraqi missiles and launchers “placed within a civilian residential area” and that “most of the missiles were positioned less than 300 feet from homes.”

“A full assessment of the operation is ongoing,” the statement said. “In some cases, such damage is unavoidable when the regime places military weapons near civilian areas.”

However, during a later briefing in Washington, Major General Stanley McChrystal said US forces did not specifically aim at Al-Shaab, “nor were any bombs and missiles fired” there. But, he said, US officials don’t know whether the missiles that landed there were Iraqi weapons or US missiles that missed their targets.

The explosions set buildings on fire, blew the wheels off cars and left a huge crater in one street in the neighbourhood busy with stores, restaurants and car repair shops. Some 30 shops were damaged.

The streets were flooded after water pipes were ruptured. Street lights crashed down, trees were uprooted and some cars flipped over from the blast.

Flames rose above the burning shops, mixing with the smoke rising from fuel fires lighted around the city to try to obscure the targets of fighter jets. Men used buckets to douse the wreckage of burned-out automobiles while women in black chadors grabbed the hands of children and ran from the scene.

Hundreds of people milled around on the street in front of the gutted market, some shaking their fists.

“This is barbarian!” shouted Adnan Saleh Barseem. “It’s proof that their aggression is collapsing.”

Residents of some of the damaged apartments began to chant: “Oh, Saddam, we sacrifice our souls and blood to you.”

Lieutenant Colonel Hamad Abdullah, head of civil defence in the area, said 14 people were killed and 30 injured. Seventeen cars were destroyed, he added.

At a military briefing in Qatar, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said he could not confirm that US missiles hit the neighbourhood. “We do everything physically and scientifically possible to be precise in our targeting,” he said.

In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was ”increasingly concerned by humanitarian casualties in this conflict.”

“I would want to remind all belligerents that they should respect international humanitarian law and take all necessary steps to protect civilians,” Annan said.

Meanwhile, explosions became louder and more frequent across the Iraqi capital. Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television reported that three huge explosions were heard in central Baghdad.

Rain was falling in Baghdad, combining with smoke and sand in the air to give the city a dark, apocalyptic look and coating everything in grey mud.

Earlier, with the assault on Baghdad drawing closer, the allies tried to cripple the regime’s communications with bombs and missiles, knocking Iraq’s satellite TV signal off the air for several hours.

US forces pounded targets in the Iraqi capital with a barrage of at least 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, the US Navy said. The air strikes also included bombing runs by warplanes.

“These targets are key regime command-and-control assets,” said Jim Wilkinson, a spokesman for US Central Command.

Iraqi Satellite TV, which broadcasts 24 hours a day outside Iraq, went off the air around 4:30 a.m. (0130 Irish time) after the attack on the TV building. It went back on the air about eight hours later.

Iraq’s domestic state-run television service, which does not broadcast around the clock and was not on the air at the time, resumed broadcasting on Wednesday morning as scheduled.

However, there was no trace of Al-Shabab television, the station owned by Saddam Hussein’s son Odai. That station is normally transmitted from the state television building.

Meanwhile, a howling sandstorm that had cast a yellow haze over Baghdad eased on Wednesday morning as US led troops lay within 50 miles of the capital, setting up a seemingly inevitable fight for control of the city of five million people. The sandstorm had slowed the allies’ advance to a crawl.

“We are determined to defend our capital after what we have seen of our brothers’ resistance in the south,” Baghdad truck driver Ahmed Falah said. “The whole world is with us now, even the weather, because the sandstorm has brought benefits to us. They are the storms of God.”

Television, like state radio, constantly played patriotic songs and messages of support from Iraqis for Saddam.