Over 50 Iraqis Killed in Fresh Explosions

“We have 41 dead — three men and one woman, and the rest were children,” Naji Shitshan, director of the morgue at the capital’s Yarmuk hospital, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Most of the casualties in the latest attacks at about 1 pm (0900 GMT) were children who had gathered to watch ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new water pumping station in a working class district in the southwest of Baghdad.

It was not clear if the event or a US convoy passing nearby was the target, The Associated Press said, quoting the US military as saying ten American soldiers were wounded in the attack, two of them seriously.

Almost simultaneously, another car bomb went off near an Iraqi national guard checkpoint about one kilometer (half a mile) south of the water pumping station.

Vast clouds of black smoke billowed into the air above the site of the attacks, which were quickly closed off by US and Iraqi forces.

A witness who identified himself as Abu Sufian said he helped pull out the corpses of 32 children from the rubble.

He said the first car bomb was followed by the firing of an anti-tank missile just before the second explosion, adding that he saw a US military convoy passing by at the time of the blasts.

The Iraqi health ministry said 60 people were wounded from the first car bomb which occurred at 9:45 am (0545 GMT) between Baghdad and Abu Ghraib to the west.

In northern Iraq, another car bomb blew up near an Iraqi police convoy in the center of Tal Afar. Hospital officials said four civilians had been killed and 16 wounded. Four policemen were also hurt.

Fallujah Casualties

Meanwhile, four people were killed and six wounded when US warplanes early Thursday carried out a raid on Fallujah west of Baghdad, the hospital officials in the town said.

“We have received three dead and six wounded,” doctor Al-Hakim Al-Badrani of the Fallujah General Hospital said, according to AFP.

The US Army said in a communiqué, without mentioning victims, it had targeted a “terrorist safe house” of the group led by Islamist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

However, sources in the city told Al-Jazeera that the deaths comprise one man, his wife and two of their children.

In a separate attack, four children were killed when the car they were traveling in came under fire from US forces, whereby the driver lost control and the car fell into a stream near Fallujah, the Associated Press reported.

Eye witness, Hussein Alwan, said that the US military personnel stopped locals from assisting the drowning people, leading to the death of the four children along with two other women travelling in the car, the American news agency added.

The wounded driver was later rescued. The US military media liaison personnel said in Baghdad that they were unaware of any such incident.

A feeling of tension is dominating Fallujah due to US military strikes against residential areas of the 300,000-populated city, the Qatar-based channel added on its website. The US air strikes are almost daily occurrences.

“I want to send a message to (US President George W.) Bush and (Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi, these houses shelled are not of militants, as they claim, but of civilians,” one local resident told Al-Jazeera.

On Saturday, September 25, at least eight civilians were killed and up to 20 others wounded in a fresh US onslaught into Fallujah.

On September 18, Amnesty International blasted the US for its barbaric raids on the city.

US Soldiers Killed

Earlier, one US soldier and two Iraqi policemen were killed in a car bombing west of Baghdad that also wounded 10 Iraqis and three US soldiers.

Also, a car bomb blast wounded four US soldiers near a US military base in Baghdad Thursday, a US military spokesman said.

“There was a vehicle-borne explosive device detonated near a multinational forward operating base about a half hour ago,” said Major Philip Smith of the 1st Cavalry Division.

“Four soldiers were wounded, and one military vehicle damaged, that’s what we have now.”

Another foreign soldier whose nationality was not immediately known was killed in a rocket attack on a US military support base near Baghdad, the US military said.

“A 122 millimeter rocket detonated, killing one multi-national force soldier and wounding seven. No further information is available at this time,” it said in a statement.