Ramadi civilian deaths - 'cowardly action' - Iraq official
IRIN: Women and children killed in US air strikes on Ramadi, doctor says
Two days of US air attacks against insurgents in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi have caused heavy casualties among the city's civilian population, a doctor and a senior Iraqi government official in Ramadi said.
"We have received the bodies of 38 people in our hospital and among them were four children and five women," Ahmed al-Kubaissy, a senior doctor at Ramadi hospital, said on Monday night. "The relatives said they had been killed by air attacks in their homes and in the street."
Al-Kubaissy said his hospital had also treated 42 people injured in the air strikes on Ramadi, a stronghold of the Islamist insurgents, 110 km west of Baghdad.
A senior Iraqi government official in the city, said three houses had been totally destroyed in the air attacks on Sunday and Monday and 14 dead civilians had been found inside them. A further 12 civilians had been critically injured in the same air strikes, he added.
[db emphasis]
"I wish I could tell you everything I know, but I cannot," said the angry official, who asked that his name be withheld for security reasons.
"What I can say is that it was a cowardly action and that if any insurgents have been killed, many more civilians have been buried with them over the past two days."
The US armed forces said in a statement that jet bombers and helicopter gunships had killed about 70 suspected militants in the attacks on Ramadi, a stronghold of Iraq's Sunni Arab community, which is bitterly opposed to the US-led military occupation of the country.
A US military spokesman played down independent reports of heavy civilian casualties in the air raids, but did not deny them outright.
"There are no civilian casualties that we are aware of," Lt Col Steven Boylan, a spokesman for the US-led Coalition forces in Iraq, told IRIN on Tuesday. Read more
Two days of US air attacks against insurgents in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi have caused heavy casualties among the city's civilian population, a doctor and a senior Iraqi government official in Ramadi said.
"We have received the bodies of 38 people in our hospital and among them were four children and five women," Ahmed al-Kubaissy, a senior doctor at Ramadi hospital, said on Monday night. "The relatives said they had been killed by air attacks in their homes and in the street."
Al-Kubaissy said his hospital had also treated 42 people injured in the air strikes on Ramadi, a stronghold of the Islamist insurgents, 110 km west of Baghdad.
A senior Iraqi government official in the city, said three houses had been totally destroyed in the air attacks on Sunday and Monday and 14 dead civilians had been found inside them. A further 12 civilians had been critically injured in the same air strikes, he added.
[db emphasis]
"I wish I could tell you everything I know, but I cannot," said the angry official, who asked that his name be withheld for security reasons.
"What I can say is that it was a cowardly action and that if any insurgents have been killed, many more civilians have been buried with them over the past two days."
The US armed forces said in a statement that jet bombers and helicopter gunships had killed about 70 suspected militants in the attacks on Ramadi, a stronghold of Iraq's Sunni Arab community, which is bitterly opposed to the US-led military occupation of the country.
A US military spokesman played down independent reports of heavy civilian casualties in the air raids, but did not deny them outright.
"There are no civilian casualties that we are aware of," Lt Col Steven Boylan, a spokesman for the US-led Coalition forces in Iraq, told IRIN on Tuesday. Read more
posted by exoplanet at 12:58 PM
<< Home