US marines today said that they had shot dead an unarmed Iraqi who drove his pick-up truck at speed towards a checkpoint. It happened just hours after seven women and children were killed in a similar incident.
The man’s white truck was sprayed with bullets after it sped towards the roadblock in the southern town of Shatra, apparently oblivious to barbed wire strewn across the road.
His passenger was badly wounded. The truck was not loaded, and neither of the men was in uniform or armed, marines told Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire.
”I thought it was a suicide bomb,” said one of the soldiers who fired on the vehicle.
Troops have been nervous, and have been ordered to be more cautious, after a suicide car bomb attack on Saturday killed four US soldiers at a checkpoint near Najaf, in southern Iraq.
Just hours before the man was killed at the checkpoint near Shatra, US troops fired on a civilian car, killing seven women and children, when it failed to stop at a checkpoint in the desert.
The incident, which happened on Route 9, near Najaf, was the worst single case of civilian deaths in the war to have been admitted by US forces so far.
The car, carrying 13 Iraqi women and children, approached a checkpoint manned by soldiers from the US 3rd Infantry Division.
A US military representative at central command in Qatar said: ”The soldiers motioned for the vehicle to stop, but the motions were ignored.
”Then the soldiers fired warning shots, which were also ignored. The soldiers then fired shots into the engine of the vehicle, but it continued to drive towards the checkpoint.
”As a last resort, the soldiers fired into the passenger compartment of the vehicle.”
But a different account was provided by a Washington Post reporter, William Branigin, who was with the soldiers.
He said that the troops had fatally opened fire on the advancing car because they did not fire a warning shot soon enough.
”You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn’t fire a warning shot soon enough!” the paper quoted Captain Ronny Johnson as telling his platoon leader.
British army representative Colonel Chris Vernon said that the killings undermined attempts to win over the local population, but added that US and British forces would be fully supported if they defended themselves against a perceived threat.
”We must allow our junior commanders who are doing the business on the ground to make these split-second decisions as they think best,” he told the BBC.
Pictures of injured and dead civilians, broadcast across the Muslim world by Arabic satellite channels, have fuelled opposition to the war and sparked angry protests.
Full story: Seven women and children shot dead at checkpoint
More bombing of Baghdad
The southern outskirts of Baghdad were hit by two explosions at dawn today. The blasts followed a night of bombing targeting the heart of the Iraqi capital, and Republican Guard are thought to be dug in ready to face US troops advancing from the south.
A heavy detonation broke a post-dawn lull about 9am local time (0600 BST).
In a midnight raid, five huge blasts hit the centre of the city and one of Saddam Hussein’s sprawling compounds on the banks of the river Tigris.
The complex, used by President Saddam, his son Qusay and aides, has been hit several times in the last 48 hours. It was also struck by missiles in the opening days of the campaign.
”A big, big, big cloud of smoke is coming out of the compound. Maybe they are using bigger bombs than before,” Reuters reporter Samia Nakhoul said last night.
Another explosion came from the headquarters of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, which is headed by President Saddam’s eldest son, Uday. Human rights activists have accused him of jailing and torturing athletes there.
The push to Baghdad
While the aerial assault has raged, US-led land troops said that they were within 50 miles of Baghdad, close to the Republican Guard defending the capital.
Reuters correspondents with US military units said US troops yesterday fought Iraqi soldiers firing from buildings and foxholes around a bridge over the Euphrates river at Hindiya. This is the closest to the capital that ground fighting has been reported.
US troops have also advanced to the outskirts of Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
Iraq reported fierce fighting in and around the city of Nassiriya, 235 miles south-east of the capital, and said that invading troops had suffered heavy casualties.
”The blood of the enemy is flowing profusely,” a military spokesman said on Iraqi state television. ”God bless your hands. Victory will be yours. God is by your side.”
Nassiriya, which is on the Euphrates, is strategically important because two main roads in the area are vital for getting supplies to invading troops further north.
Basra under siege
Iraqi civilians fleeing the southern city today said that they faced pressure from members of the ruling Baath party not to rise up against President Saddam.
”The Baath party has been going around Basra and using megaphones to warn us that we had better join the war effort,” an Iraqi resident, who declined to give his name, told a Reuters correspondent at an army checkpoint on the outskirts of the city.
”They’ve told us we should not try to rebel against the government,” he said.
Another man leaving Basra said that secret police had made a number of arrests over the last few days.
”They are entering our homes and asking us about relatives, asking us why our relatives are not fighting against the Americans and British. There is an internal terror campaign inside Basra,” he said.
But resistance has continued in the city, confounding British and US hopes that the Shia people of southern Iraq would repeat their 1991 revolt against Saddam’s largely Sunni leadership. That revolt was brutally put down.
Col Vernon said that the strategy adopted by British troops in the south of Iraq was to target Baath officials and the Fedayeen militia.
”We have got to drive a wedge between the hardline Baath party and the militia they are controlling, and the civilian population who are intimidated by them,” he said. ”That really enshrines everything we are trying to do here.”
British forces have besieged Basra since reaching its outskirts at the start of the 13-day-old war, and fought with troops defending it.
The Iraqi military also claims to have inflicted heavier casualties on US and British forces near Basra than the two allies have admitted.
”The Americans and British sustained heavy casualties in Abul Khasib, south of Basra. Their corpses were still lying on the ground of the battlefield,” a military representative said.
”Saddam Fedayeen and ruling Baath party members repulsed the aggressors, and they were forced to retreat.
British casualty
Another British soldier has been killed in southern Iraq, bringing the total British death toll to 26, it was announced today.
Excluding the latest casualty, 25 British soldiers had died in the 13-day-old war so far, five in action and 20 in accidents or ”friendly fire”.
Exile plea to Saddam
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister today called for an end to the war, urging President Saddam to step down to spare Iraq more bloodshed.
”If his staying in power [is] the only thing that brings problems to his country, we expect that he would respond to a sacrifice for his country, as he requires any citizen there to sacrifice for his country,” Prince Saud al-Faisal told the US ABC News channel.
”This war can only lead to strife, to bloodshed and to increased hatred,” he said.
Iraqi state television today denied rumours that President Saddam had already fled with his family. ”[It] is a repeat of a lie that was previously voiced by the Pentagon,” the statement said.
”The immediate family of leader Saddam Hussein is part and parcel of the great and larger Iraqi family.” – Guardian Unlimited Â