- Rasoul Hammed Najeed stood outside his home sobbing uncontrollably
for his five-year-old son, who was killed while playing near a busy Baghdad
vegetable market when an air raid struck.
-
- "After this crime, I wish I could see [US President
George Bush] in order to cut him to pieces with my teeth," he cried.
-
- Another man, identified as Saad Abd Qasim, stood as if
in a trance, unable to speak.
-
- Friends said his wife, his child and the wife of his
son had been among the 50 to 60 people Iraqis say were killed in the raid.
-
- "We heard a plane flying over us. We saw a rocket
coming in our direction, and then we heard the explosion. My shop was shaken
but, thank God, I am safe," Eyad Abadi, 30, said.
-
- The raid took place in the run-down, working-class district
of Shula in north-west Baghdad, inhabited mostly by Shi'ite Muslims.
-
- Most of the one-storey shops in the immediate area were
demolished. The ground was covered with blood and broken glass. Reporter
Hassan Hafidh said he saw 10 corpses.
-
- Abu Dhabi television said US cruise missiles may have
hit the market.
-
- The US military blamed another, earlier explosion in
a Baghdad residential area last week on an errant Iraqi missile. It had
no immediate comment on Friday's hit on Shula.
-
- There were scenes of panic and confusion at the nearby
Al-Noor Hospital as relatives tried to locate or comfort injured loved
ones.
-
- "Is this the humanity that Bush is talking about?
He has no mercy at all. May God make him fail," said Ali Kadhin, whose
three-year-old son was badly injured in the attack.
-
- Dr Osama Sakhari said he had counted 55 people killed
and more than 47 wounded in the raid. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed
Saeed al-Sahhaf said at least 58 people had been killed.
-
- Dr Sakhari said he had counted 15 children among the
dead - one had died in his arms.
-
- "I ask Bush and Blair to imagine how they would
feel if their child died in their arms," he said.
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- http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/29/1048653901318.html
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