Death struck during prayers
2003-12-01 12:08
Samarra, Iraq - Scenes of devastation dotted the Iraqi town of Samarra on Monday after fierce clashes between US forces and insurgents in which senior police and hospital officials said at least eight civilians were killed and dozens wounded by US fire.
US commanders previously said they killed 46 Iraqis, all of them insurgents, in the clashes on Sunday afternoon and evening, which they described as the heaviest faced in Iraq by the 4th Infantry Division which patrols the region.
On Monday they raised the death toll to 54, without specifying whether the additional dead were insurgents or civilians.
Samarra hospital accident and emergency department anaesthetist Bassem Ibrahim said "we received the bodies of eight civilians, including a woman and a child".
It was not immediately clear whether the dead civilians included two Iranian pilgrims said to have been killed in their bus.
Hospital director Abed Tawfiq told AFP "more than 60 people wounded by gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated at the hospital".
He said there were so many casualties from US fire during the intense clashes with insurgents who ambushed American convoys in the town on Sunday afternoon and evening that they had had to be treated in the hospital's corridors.
The town's police chief Colonel Ismail Mahmud Mohammed said about 20 of the wounded sustained their injuries while worshipping at a mosque during sunset prayers.
He said the insurgents, who had attacked US forces, had withdrawn when the Americans had returned fire, and charged that the troops had done so indiscriminately with all weapons in their arsenal.
"There was an attack and a exchange of fire between the Americans and the resistance lasting half an hour. The resistance withdrew, then bombardments started using all manner of weapons in all directions and without any discrimination," said Mohammed.
"Eight civilians were killed, including a child, and 45 wounded, some 20 of them in a mosque during sunset prayers," he said.
Meanwhile, AFP correspondents saw a civilian bus completely burned out 30m from the main entrance to the town's hospital.
The correspondents were shown two Iranian passports said to belong to pilgrims killed in the vehicle. Nine others, also Iranian pilgrims, were wounded, said the police guard outside the hospital, Mohammed Ali.
- AFP