Rescuers dig through blast rubble

Rescue workers dug through rubble today to recover bodies a day after a US air strike aimed at Saddam Hussein hit a well-to-do Baghdad neighbourhood.

Rescue workers said the death toll in the al-Mansour district could reach 14. It wasn’t clear today whether Saddam Hussein, the target of the powerful bombs, was dead or alive.

The extent of Monday’s air strike was so extensive that steel beams from three destroyed buildings could be found 100 yards or more away.

Then blast ripped orange trees out by the roots and left a heap of concrete, mangled iron rods and shredded furniture and clothes. A smoking crater was some 60 feet deep.

Two bodies, one of a small boy and the other of a young woman, were recovered. Another body, that of an elderly man, had been pulled out last night.

A woman in her mid 40s wept uncontrollably and later collapsed from the rescue workers brought out the remains of her 20-year-old daughter, Lava Jamal.

Besides the three houses that were destroyed at least 20 others were damaged, some badly.