Tue, May 25, 2004 - Page 1 News List

Video casts doubt on attack story

DEADLY ASSAULT The US military said there was `no evidence of a wedding' at the site of an attack in Mogr el-Deeb, Iraq, but video footage suggests otherwise

AP , RAMADI, IRAQ

Kimmitt said US troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria.

The video showed no weapons, though they are common among rural Iraqis.

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."

"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he said on Friday.

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

Four days after the attack, the memories of the survivors remain painful -- as are their injuries.

"At about 3am, we were sleeping and the planes started firing," said one of the mourners, who gave his name only as Bassem. "They fired more than 40 missiles. As soon as they started attacking, firing the first missile, I went away. I was running. ... There are no fighters. These are lies. There's no resistance. Even the bride and the groom died."

Haleema Shihab, 32, one of the three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her seven-month-old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her five-year-old son, Hamza, started running. Her 15-year-old son Ali sprinted alongside her. They managed to run for several meters when she fell -- her leg fractured.

"Hamza was yelling, `Mommy,'" Shihab recalled. "Ali said he was hurt and that he was bleeding. That's the last time I heard him." Then another shell fell and injured Shihab's left arm.

"Hamza fell from my hand and was gone. Only Yousef stayed in my arms. Ali had been hit and was killed. I couldn't go back," she said from her hospital bed in Ramadi.

She and her stepdaughter, Iqbal then hid in a bomb crater. "We were bleeding from 3am until sunrise," Shihab said.

Shihab's stepdaughter, 14-year-old Moza, lies on another bed of the hospital room. She was hurt in the leg and cries. Her relatives haven't told her yet that her mother, Sumaya, is dead.

Her sister, Iqbal, lay in pain on the bed next to her. Her other sister, Subha, was on the upper floor of the hospital.

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