Attackers fired into an ammunition dump guarded by Americans on Baghdad's southeastern outskirts early Saturday, setting off thunderous explosions that killed six Iraqis and wounded four, the U.S. military said. One American soldier suffered a broken arm. Hospital officials put the number of injured at 25.
Angry residents briefly fired on U.S. troops trying to treat the injured and recover bodies from the rubble, driving them from the area for a short time. Residents blamed the U.S. military for not moving the dangerous material away from a populated area.
| Isn't that where they found it in the first place? |
Residents of the Zafaraniyah neighborhood in southwest Baghdad said the victims were all members of the same family, including a 50-year-old man, his four teenage children and his 23-year-old daughter-in-law. Early reports that babies were among the victims appeared to be unfounded.
"War's over, dammit!"
"Oh. I forgot. No babies, then..." |
U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar issued a statement saying the assailant or assailants "fired an unknown incendiary device into the cache, causing it to catch fire and explode." It said soldiers of the army's 3rd Infantry Division came under attack as they guarded the cache. "The explosion caused the destruction of the cache as well as a nearby building," the statement said.
| This incident is one we should ride for miles of propaganda value. Rather than taking it as a fact of life, like we seem to do in Afghanistan, we should be gnashing our teeth in public and expressing our outrage that foreigners and war criminals continue attacking innocent civilians. I'd be on the phone with Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV, demanding that they get over there immediately, with their cameras, and start interviewing. And I'd tell 'em about the dead babies. |
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