- The US military has vowed to continue aggressive tactics
after saying it killed 54 Iraqis following an ambush, but commanders admitted
they had no proof to back up their claims.
-
- The only corpses at Samarra's hospital were those of
civilians, including two elderly Iranian visitors and a child.
-
- A top military commander acknowledged on Monday that
the toll was based entirely on estimates gleaned from troop debriefings
and that US soldiers had not recovered a single body from the scene of
Sunday's clashes.
-
- Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt estimated the number of
dead in Samarra at 54, along with 22 wounded, saying they were all resistance
fighters. He also said one person was detained.
-
- He admitted that the one resistance fighter now confirmed
in custody was a sharp reduction on the 11 claimed captured by the commanding
colonel in Samarra earlier.
-
- "Some of those earlier reports might have been a
bit off," Kimmitt said.
-
- "Are you asking me to produce (them)?" asked
Colonel Fredrick Rudesheim, who heads the 3rd Combat Brigades that was
involved in the clashes, when questioned by reporters about the absence
of any fighters' bodies at Samarra's single hospital or on the city's streets.
-
- Sergeant Nicholas Mullen, who fired rounds from an Abrams
tank, offered yet another explanation for the army's inability to locate
the corpses. "We don't stick around," he said.
-
- Mystery continues
-
- Challenged about what happened to the bodies of the 54
said to have been killed, Kimmitt said: "I would suspect that the
enemy would have carried them away and brought them back to where their
initial base was."
-
- "If the death toll had reached that announced by
the Americans, the atmosphere in Samarra would be quite different"
-
- --Abd al-Munaim Muhammad ambulance driver, Samarra
-
- Asked about reports from senior police and hospital officials
in the town of only eight civilians killed and dozens more wounded, the
US general insisted: "We have no such reports whether from medical
authorities or police."
-
- But a medic at Samarra hospital said the bodies of "eight
civilians including a woman and a child" were received at the hospital.
-
- Hospital director Abd Tawfiq said "more than 60
people wounded by gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated
at the hospital".
-
- And ambulance driver Abd al-Munaim Muhammad said he had
not ferried any fighters wounded or killed and wearing the black Fidayin
outfit which US soldiers claimed their assailants wore.
-
- "If I had seen bodies, I would have picked them
up. It's not like the Americans would have done it," he said.
-
- "If the death toll had reached that announced by
the Americans, the atmosphere in Samarra would be quite different,"
he added.
-
- Iranian reaction
-
- It was not immediately clear whether the figure included
two Iranian visitors said to have been killed in their bus.
-
- Schools and mosques were also reportedly hit in the attack
-
- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi condemned what
he called the "blind attacks" by US forces.
-
- "America is responsible for the killing of the Iranian
national in Samarra. It must account for this crime," he said.
-
- Tehran's foreign ministry on Tuesday summoned the Swiss
ambassador to Iran, who acts as the head of the US interest section office
there, to protest against the deaths, reported a state news agency.
-
- Iran demanded that Washington "clarify the circumstances
leading to the incident," and announce the result of its own investigation
and provide compensation.
-
- The bloodshed prompted members of Samarra's tribal council
to demand an immediate US pullout from the area.
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- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0F5C52AC-D99F-4986-B0BD-83DA497F4
36E.htm
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