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US bombing: 75 dead
12/08/2004 08:51 - (SA)
Kut - Heavy overnight American bombardment of Kut has killed 75 people and wounded about 150, one day after clashes between police and Shiite Muslim militiamen in the southern Iraqi city, a senior medic said on Thursday.
"American planes started bombing the al-Shakia district, in southern Kut after 03:00," said Kut hospital director, Khader Fadal Arar.
"They destroyed 18 houses and killed 56 people and injured more than 110, some of them very seriously," he said.
Many of the dead and wounded were women and children, Arar added.
Fierce clashes
The bombardment followed a day of fierce clashes between Iraqi police and militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr, in which at least two national guardsmen and three policemen were wounded.
The office of Sadr's movement in Kut was flattened in the bombing, said supporter of the militia leader, Sheikh Mohammed Yihyiah.
"Our office has been destroyed because it was in the same district, fortunately there was no one in the office that's why we have no casualties. Perhaps they thought it would be full of militiamen," he said.
On Wednesday, Iraqi police and security forces were locked in fighting against insurgents who attacked Kut's city hall, police stations and national guard barracks, said a statement from the Polish-led force in the area.
The multinational force said people on both sides were killed and wounded, but did not specify a casualty toll.
Multinational force has increased
Sadr's Mehdi Army militiamen had blocked off streets and besieged the governor's office in the eastern part of the town, armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades, as United States planes flew overhead.
Governorate spokesperson Majid Hameed said a written death threat had been delivered to the province's governor because he had refused to bow to demands from Sadr supporters that Kut secede from Iraq with other Shiite provinces of the south and centre.
The multinational force in the area has "increased its combat readiness" and is prepared to support the Iraqi security forces," said a statement from the Polish-led military issued late Wednesday.
Kut fell briefly to the Mehdi Army in the spring during Sadr's first uprising against foreign troops. - Sapa
- AFP
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