|
Quite an interesting wedding party, no doubt ...
American military officials said Saturday that they had recovered a number of guns and other military-related items from the site of an attack carried out in western Iraq earlier this week that left at least 40 people dead. The officials said the items demonstrated that they had probably struck a gathering of insurgents, not civilians at a wedding party, as some local Iraqis and news organizations had said. In a briefing for reporters, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the items found included rifles and batteries rigged in a way that suggested they were intended to be used to detonate bombs. A building on the site of the attack, he said, appeared to have been used as a dormitory, with 300 sets of bedding and as many as 100 sets of prepackaged Iraqi clothing. In addition, General Kimmitt said, American soldiers found machines used to manufacture identification cards and Iraqi exit visas. Soldiers also recovered what the general described as "terrorist training manuals."Local people had said that the American strike, carried out by land and air Wednesday morning, had struck a wedding party and killed 43 civilians. Videotape showing what was said to be the bodies of people killed at the site showed women and children being buried. Witnesses said the dead included 14 children and 12 women. Despite the evidence, General Kimmitt acknowledged there will still "inconsistencies" between military reports and those coming from people in the area. "That is why we are continuing to explore all possibilities for what happened on the ground," he said. General Kimmitt said the evidence suggested that the place had been used as a transit point for fighters who were crossing the nearby Syrian border. "We suspect that when foreign fighters come in from other countries, they come to this location and they change their clothes into typical Iraqi clothing," he said. Reporters visiting the village, Makr Al-Deeb, found evidence of both insurgent activity and of a celebration. A well-known Iraqi singer who often entertains in the region, Nazar al-Khalid, was killed at the scene. Yet a leader in the village was identified by local residents as a "mujahid," a term used to describe anti-American fighters. General Kimmitt said six women had been killed in the attack, but no children. He said the American soldiers had found nothing to suggest that a wedding had been in progress: there were no decorations, no leftover portions of food, no wedding tent or musical instruments, he said. None of the bodies found by the American soldiers carried any identification cards, General Kimmitt said, and all of the men killed at the scene appeared to be of military age. General Kimmitt said they had recovered several international telephone numbers, to places like Afghanistan and Sudan. The fact that none of the bodies found at the scene were of elderly people, General Kimmitt said, was another indication that whatever gathering took place probably involved military personnel. Also Saturday, American military officials said talks between them and leaders in the Sadr City section of Baghdad had broken down. The Americans have been pressing local leaders inside the predominantly Shiite area to persuade insurgents operating there to call off their attacks on American patrols. Earlier this week, the Americans agreed to reduce their presence inside Sadr City if the insurgents would halt their attacks. Military officials said Saturday the insurgents had not complied, and that the talks had ceased. That seemed to set the stage for possible violence later this week. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-05-23 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=33707 |