From The Independent (UK)

Children killed and maimed in bomb attack on town

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad and Justin Huggler

02 April 2003

At least 11 civilians, nine of them children, were

killed in Hilla in central Iraq yesterday, according

to reporters in the town who said they appeared to be

the victims of bombing.

Reporters from the Reuters news agency said they

counted the bodies of 11 civilians and two Iraqi

fighters in the Babylon suburb, 50 miles south of

Baghdad. Nine of the dead were children, one a baby.

Hospital workers said as many as 33 civilians were

killed.

Terrifying film of women and children later emerged

after Reuters and the Associated Press were permitted

by the Iraqi authorities to take their cameras into

the town. Their pictures -- the first by Western news

agencies from the Iraqi side of the battlefront --

showed babies cut in half and children with amputation

wounds, apparently caused by American shellfire and

cluster bombs.

Much of the videotape was too terrible to show on

television and the agencies' Baghdad editors felt able

to send only a few minutes of a 21-minute tape that

included a father holding out pieces of his baby and

screaming "cowards, cowards'' into the camera. Two

lorryloads of bodies, including women in flowered

dresses, could be seen outside the Hilla hospital.

Dr Nazem el-Adali, who was trained in Edinburgh, said

almost all the patients were victims of cluster bombs

dropped around Hella and in the neighbouring village

of Mazarak. One woman, Alia Mukhtaff, is seen lying

wounded on a bed; she lost six of her children and her

husband in the attacks. Another man is seen with an

arm missing, and a second man, Majeed Djelil, whose

wife and two of his children were killed, can be seen

sitting next to his third and surviving child, whose

foot is missing. The mortuary of the hospital, a

butcher's shop of chopped up corpses, is seen briefly

in the tape.

Iraqi officials have been insisting for 48 hours that

the Americans have used cluster bombs on civilians in

the region but this is the first time that evidence

supporting these claims has come from Western news

agencies. Most of the wounded said they were hit by

American munitions and one man described how an

American vehicle fired a shell into his family home.

"I could see an American flag,'' he says.

One of the editors in Baghdad, a European, when asked

why he would not send the full videotape to London,

wound the pictures on to two mutilated corpses of

babies. "How could we ever send this?'' he said.

Further south, there was heavy fire around the town of

Diwaniyah, about 80 miles south-east of Baghdad. It

was the second day of close combat between American

forces and Iraqi troops, after fighting in the town of

Hindiyah on Monday. It appeared that US troops were

looking to take on some Iraqi forces after initially

advancing largely unopposed through vast tracts of

empty desert but deliberately avoiding population

centres.

According to reports from Diwaniyah, US Marines

deliberately provoked a firefight by moving into an

area where they had come under fire before. The

marines came under heavy fire from rocket-propelled

grenades and machine-guns.

Iraqi Republican Guard troops and other fighters fired

on the advancing marines from fortified bunkers and

positions in buildings and behind vehicles. Corporal

Patrick Irish of the US Marines said: "They were

shooting from buildings, from dug-out positions, from

holes, from everything. They would jump out to shoot.

They were behind buses. You name it, they were there."

Although the Iraqis were outgunned by the heavily

armed marines, the firefight went on for about 10

hours, according to Lieutenant-Colonel B P McCoy of

the US Marines. They used 155mm artillery to destroy

Iraqi tanks and mortar positions. "We hammered them

pretty hard," said Lt-Col McCoy. At least 75 Iraqis

were killed in fighting on Diwaniyah's outskirts and

at least 44 soldiers, including some Republican Guard

officers, were taken prisoner, Lt-Col McCoy said.

There was no report of American casualties.

North-east of Diwaniyah there was heavy bombing

yesterday near Kut to clear the way for ground forces,

according to the US military. American marines also

claim to have "secured" an air base at Qalat Sukkar,

south-east of Kut, which US forces want to use as a

staging ground.

Overnight, planes bombed the area around Hindiyah.

Ominously, there were also reports of missiles

streaking towards the Shia holy city of Kerbala, where

any damage to the shrines could set the Shia Muslim

world alight.

The Iraqi military said its troops were fighting US

forces inside Nasiriyah and on the outskirts of the

city, and had inflicted heavy casualties. "The blood

of the enemy is flowing profusely," a military

spokesman said at a press briefing, who claimed that

fighting was still going on as he spoke. He claimed

the forces fighting in and around Nasiriyah included

Republican Guards, regular Iraqi army soldiers,

volunteers from across the Arab world, and ordinary

Iraqi citizens.

US Marines fought their way across the city's bridges

last Tuesday but did not take control of the city.

Since then, Iraqi forces have made several ambushes in

the area.

The Iraqi spokesman also said US forces launched an

attack on the Shia holy city of Najaf yesterday, and

claimed fighters inside the city had forced them to

retreat after suffering heavy losses.