Video of wedding bombing shows carnage

Fragments of musical instruments, tufts of women’s hair, and a large blood stain are among the scenes in a film of a destroyed house that survivors claim United States planes bombed during a wedding party.

It is the first known footage of the aftermath of Wednesday’s attack, which is claimed to have killed up to 45 people, mostly women and children from the Bou Fahad tribe in Mogr el-Deeb, a desert village on the Syrian border.

The US military has said the target was a suspected safe house for foreign fighters from Syria and denied today that children were killed.

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said US troops who reported back from the operation “told us they did not shoot women and children”.

“There were a number of women, a handful of women, I think the number was four to six, caught up in the engagement. They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft,” Kimmitt said.

But an Associated Press reporter in the Ramadi area, at least 275 miles east of Mogr el-Deeb, was able to identify at least 10 of the bodies as those of children.

At the Bou Fahad cemetery outside Ramadi, where the tribe is based, each of the 28 fresh graves contains one to three corpses, mostly of mothers and their young children.

Bou Fahad tribesmen denied there were foreign fighters among their community. They consider the desolate border area part of their territory and follow their goats, sheep and cattle there to graze.

Weddings are often marked in Iraq with celebratory gunfire, but survivors insisted no weapons were fired on Wednesday – despite speculation by Iraqi officials that this drew a mistaken American attack.

The first bomb hit the huge goat-hair tent – where male guests were said to be sleeping – at about 2.45am on Wednesday. The barrage did not stop until sunrise, witnesses said.