Massacre in Basra!

by internationalist Monday, Mar. 24, 2003 at 11:02 AM

Al-Jazeera television is reporting a massacre of some 50 people in Basra. The TV station has broadcast the gruesome film it captured of dead and wounded civilians (one of which is pictured on this page).

Massacre in Basra!...
deadgirl.jpg, image/jpeg, 350x250

The footage is fueling angry protest in the Arab world... but the film has not been broadcast anywhere in the United States. A page on the Al-Jazeera website has posted a large number of stills from the grisly footage, that page is located at:

http://www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2003/3/3-22-26.htm

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Reuters news agency carried the story, but did not publish the photographs:

March 22, 2003
Jazeera shows grisly pictures of dead Iraqis

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=1713217

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Al-Jazeera television, quoting Iraqi medics, say that 50 people have been killed in U.S. bombing around the southern Iraqi city of Basra and it has aired grisly footage of dead and wounded civilians. Among the scenes, beamed across the Arab the world by the Qatar-based satellite channel, were a child with the back of its head blown off -- it was unclear if it was a boy or a girl -- and bloodied people being treated on the floor of a hospital.

"It's a huge mass of civilians," one angry woman told al-Jazeera, standing among the wounded. "It was a massacre."
The report could not be independently confirmed. U.S. and British forces have been in action around Basra. U.S. Marines defeated Iraqi forces in a battle on the outskirts of the city on Saturday, and took many prisoners, a U.S. officer said. It was not immediately clear who controlled Basra and there was no other immediate confirmation of the bombings.

Asked about whether U.S.-led forces had bombed Basra, a military spokesman in Qatar declined comment, saying: "That is considered an ongoing operation and until it is over we're not going to go out there one way or another on that."
U.S. and British forces say they are intent on keeping civilian casualties to a minimum in their war to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Jazeera quoted hospital sources as saying a total of 50 people were killed -- including one entire family and a Russian citizen -- when U.S. F-16 warplanes planes bombed the city.