US defence chiefs today confirmed that American troops have been captured by Iraq after four US soldiers and five corpses were paraded on Iraqi television.
The Iraqi vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, had promised that coalition soldiers captured at the southern town of Souq al-Shuyukh near Nasiriyah would be shown on state television today.
The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers, expressed outrage over the footage of what are believed to be the first coalition prisoners of war.
The troops were allegedly captured in Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, where coalition forces have encountered stiff resistance.
General Myers who had earlier confirmed that fewer than 10 US soldiers were missing in southern Iraq, said: ”This is one more crime by the Iraqi regime.”
US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who admitted that the missing soldiers could have been captured, told CBS television that parading PoWs on television was ”a violation of the Geneva Convention.” The US defence department added: ”What they are doing is wrong. We are trying to get to the bottom of it.”
During the video, obtained by TV channel al-Jazeera, the PoWs were questioned on air and gave their names, military identification numbers and home towns.
Two of the prisoners, including a woman, appeared to be wounded. They said that they were from the US Army’s 507 maintenance unit, part of the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, which includes Patriot missile batteries. The TV channel earlier showed scenes of hundreds of Iraqi troops, police and civilians firing into the bull rushes on the banks of the River Tigris in the city, following unconfirmed reports that a coalition plane had been shot down.
Al-Jazeera also reported that Iraqi officials have denied claims that a US pilot has been captured in Baghdad.
The TV channel earlier showed scenes of hundreds of Iraqi troops, police and civilians firing into the bull rushes on the banks of the River Tigris in the city, following unconfirmed reports that a coalition plane had been shot down.
ITN reporter Terry Lloyd ”believed dead”
The missing ITN news reporter Terry Lloyd is now believed to be dead, the news channel said today.
Mr Lloyd, 50, disappeared yesterday after his TV crew came under fire in southern Iraq while travelling to the city of Basra.
Lloyd’s two colleagues, cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Osman, are still missing.
Lloyd, a father-of-two, was an award-winning broadcaster and TV journalist who had reported in war-zones across the world.
Another member of his crew, cameraman Daniel Demoustier, was injured as the team drove towards Basra in two vehicles, but he scrambled to safety.
He said Lloyd was his passenger in one car when their convoy was hit by ”friendly fire” from coalition forces.
Investigation launched into shooting down of RAF aircraft
British defence chiefs said today that an investigation has been launched into the shooting down of an RAF Tornado by a US Patriot missile battery while it was returning from a mission over Iraq early this morning.
The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, told BBC1’s Politics Show that ”urgent reviews” were under way into the ”friendly fire” incident, which has left two British airmen missing close to the Kuwaiti border.
Group Captain Al Lockwood, the representative for British forces in the Gulf, said a joint UK and US investigation had been launched. ”We will get to the bottom of it to make sure there is no repetition,” he said. ”We’re looking now for the evidence of the aircraft’s crash site – and obviously the crew members.”
US central command today confirmed that a Tornado GR4, the fighter-bomber version of the aircraft, was returning from an operational mission early on Sunday when it was ”engaged” by the missile battery.
The Ministry of Defence later announced that the jet was based at RAF Marham in Norfolk. A representative said: ”The next of kin have been informed. Two airmen remain missing.”
The commander of British troops in the Gulf, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, admitted this morning that one of his planes had been shot down ”by mistake”.
Air Marshal Burridge, speaking from central command in Qatar, told BBC1’s Breakfast with Frost that coalition forces were now ”deeply engaged” in searching for the downed aircraft. ”This is a sad moment but we will put it behind us as quickly as we can in a military sense and carry on to our objective,” he said.
RAF personnel in Kuwait could not explain how the accident might have happened. ”There must have been literally thousands of missions flown over the border. There were something like 1 500 missions last night,” a source said. ”They are squawking all the time to people on the ground and their electronic signature should make it clear[who they are].”
The incident was the third accident to hit the estimated 45,000 British forces in the Gulf since the war began. On Saturday, two British Royal Navy helicopters collided, killing the six British and one American crewmen on board. And on Friday, eight British Royal Marines and four American Marines died when their CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed before dawn in Kuwait.
Iraq drops claims of captured pilots
TV channel al-Jazeera reported that Iraqi officials have denied claims that a US pilot has been captured in Baghdad.
The TV channel earlier showed scenes of hundreds of Iraqi troops, police and civilians firing into the bull rushes on the banks of the River Tigris in the city, following unconfirmed reports that a coalition plane had been shot down.
US and UK military commanders denied earlier Iraqi claims that two coalition pilots have been captured by the River Tigris in Baghdad.
US Airforce General Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, rejected claims that western pilots had been forced to abandon aircraft over Baghdad.
He told ABC’s This Week: ”We have nothing to substantiate that claim by the Iraqis that any pilot has bailed out of his airplane over Baghdad. All planes are reported safe at this point.”
Soldiers fire into rushes>/b>
Meanwhile, fresh fighting broke out in the Iraqi port town of Umm Qasr this morning. After four hours of skirmishes with Iraqi troops, the town now appears to be under the control of US-led forces.
The forces faced artillery and machine-gun fire in Basra and street-to-street fighting against guerrillas in Umm Qasr. US central command said this morning that both Basra and Umm Qasr were now under coalition control.
Bombs hit Basra
Missiles which Iran earlier today were probably fired by Iraq, a UK military representative said this morning.
US engineer kills fellow soldier in grenade attack
In Kuwait, American officials were forced to confront the prospect that one of their own soldiers had killed a comrade and wounded 13 others.
The grenade attack occurred early today at a 101st Airborne Division command center, where an assailant threw grenades into three tents.
The suspect, found hiding in a bunker, is an engineer from an engineering platoon. The motive ”most likely was resentment,” said Max Blumenfeld, a US Army spokesman, who did not elaborate.
Three of the wounded were seriously injured; 10 had superficial wounds from fragments of the grenade, said George Heath, civilian spokesman for Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the 101st Airborne’s home base.
”Death is a tragic incident regardless of how it comes,” Heath said. ”But when it comes from a fellow comrade, it does even more to hurt morale.”
Ba’ath party leader killed in Najaf
The Pentagon said that US ground forces had crossed the Euphrates river and were within 100 miles of Baghdad. Sky News reported ”fierce fighting” in both the Shia holy city of Najaf and Nassiriya, 235 miles south-east of the city.
Iraq’s ruling Ba’ath party said that the local leader of President Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, Nayef Shedakh, was killed in the fighting.
Bombs hit Iraqi cities
Air raid sirens sounded in Baghdad this morning as American B-52 bombers took off from RAF Fairford in Oxfordshire. Several explosions shook the capital before dawn on Sunday in the latest wave of US-led aircraft and missile attacks that have pounded the city for more than three days.
Much of Baghdad was plunged into darkness on Saturday evening after numerous large explosions throughout the day. Explosions were also reported around the northern city of Mosul and in Iraq’s second city, Basra, where the Iraqi information minister said 77 civilians had been killed.
Columns of dark smoke rose from points around the Iraqi capital on Saturday evening. Al-Jazeera television reported that the plumes were coming from fires that Iraqis had set to oil containers around Baghdad in an effort to obscure targets.
No confirmation of ‘Saddam death’ report
There was speculation over the fate of President Saddam, with British and US government spokesmen unable to confirm reports that he had been injured or even killed.
The Iraqi leader was thought to have been with one or both of his sons in an underground bunker in southern Baghdad when allied forces struck in the early hours of Thursday morning.
In an effort to show that President Saddam’s regime was still firmly in control, Iraqi state television showed what it said was footage of the Iraqi president chairing meetings on Saturday with senior government ministers and with his son Qusay.
But US intelligence said this morning that the speech by Saddam Hussein broadcast soon after the US launched an attack on his bunker began was in fact pre-recorded.
An Iraqi military representative said on TV that Iraqi air defences had shot down 21 cruise missiles on Saturday, AP news agency reported. Late on Saturday, Iraqi officials took journalists to inspect residential areas they said had been targeted by the US-led bombing.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Saturday that at least 100 people had been injured in the overnight air strikes on Baghdad. – Guardian Unlimited Â