First Published 2003-03-31


The farm was hit by a missile late 29 March 2003

 
26 civilians killed in Baghdad bombing

 
US-led coalition bombing kills 26 people in Baghdad residential neighbourhood, Al-Janabiin suburb.

 
BAGHDAD - Six Iraqi civilians were killed and dozens wounded by a US-led coalition bombing in a Baghdad residential neighborhood, hospital sources said.

Kamal Askar, director of the al-Kindi hospital, said the incident happened in the al-Amin neighborhood in east Baghdad. A correspondent reported that six homes in the area were destroyed.

Twenty people, including 11 children, were killed when a nighttime missile attack struck a farm near Baghdad, relatives said Monday.

Another 10 people were wounded, according to relatives who survived the Saturday night assault, which destroyed three homes in the Al-Janabiin suburb on the southeastern edge of Baghdad.

They said the dead also included seven women and two men belonging to five families.

The two relatives were the only residents to escape unharmed from the ruins of the homes, according to a journalist on the scene.

Civilian casualities in Baghdad and its outskirts have mounted since the war's outbreak on March 20.

The US-led coalition has relentlessly bombed the southern rim of the city, where elite Republican Guard units are believed to be guarding the approach to President Saddam Hussein's seat of power.

The witnesses in Al-Janabiin, who showed a journalist the debris from the attack, said a missile struck the farm leaving a trail of destruction over a wide area.

AFP journalists have witnessed five such incidents in which civilians were the primary victims of a coalition strike, reporting at least 70 dead and dozens of wounded.

Iraqi officials have said hundreds of civilians have been killed and wounded since the start of the war.

US and British war planners have declared their intent to minimize civilian casualities and accuse the Iraqi leadership of deliberately placing military targets such as weapons and ammunition in residential neighborhoods.

They have also suggested that some of the blasts might have been the result of misguided Iraqi anti-missile missiles.
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