"No,
no to America, yes, yes to Islam!" chanted the demonstrators from
Baghdad's Zaafaraniya district, carrying banners accusing U.S. troops
of negligence for dumping the weapons in a residential neighborhood,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The
Americans are killing Iraqis with the weapons of Saddam Hussein,"
one banner charged, while another denounced "Arms placed among
civilians".
A
Shiite religious leader, Sheikh Khaled Shomari, warned U.S. forces
against repeating such "crimes against the lives of
innocents" and pointed to a truck that had borne the corpses of
six victims of the blasts.
U.S.
troops were stoned by a crowd when they first reached the site and
began taking victims to local hospitals, according to the BBC online
news service.
Hundreds
of people waved their fists at U.S. troops as they were evacuated from
the area.
"This
is the responsibility of the U.S. army because we told them this is a
civilian area," one man told BBC.
In
one truck, people chanted, "America's no better than
Saddam".
A
large crowd also gathered outside the Palestine Hotel in central
Baghdad, with banners saying "American forces kill the
innocent" and "No bomb between houses".
U.S.
soldiers guarding the Palestine Hotel, where most of the international
press corps is staying, kept demonstrators at bay with barbed wire.
Family
Of Six Killed
 |
|
Mourning
the victims of the blasts
|
At
least six members of a single family were killed when a stash of Iraqi
weapons guarded by U.S. troops exploded in Baghdad, setting off a hail
of rockets that flattened their house and buried them inside.
Witnesses
described a grisly scene of blood-spattered bodies being pulled from
the wreckage as residents were starting what was supposed to be a week
of hope amid efforts to rebuild the devastated Iraqi capital.
"I
saw three dead women with my own eyes. One of my friends was killed.
They pulled him out of the building covered with blood," said a
distraught Ahmed Khilal, 18.
Shaker
Mahmoud Nasser, the emergency surgeon at the Rashid military hospital,
said: "I have six bodies but I was told that there are between 11
and 14 dead." He said around 30 were wounded.
The
six dead were all from the family of Khazal Saber, doctors said. The
victims were between 20 and 50 years old.
"Does
God accept this?" said Thamer, the family's eldest son, weeping
inconsolably at the hospital.
"We
kept telling the Americans not to store explosives so close by. What
happened? Why didn't they listen to us?" Relatives said three
family members were still missing.
During the war to topple Saddam Hussein, the United States repeatedly
accused his regime of hiding military targets in civilian areas. The
latest deaths quickly inflamed tensions already high over the chaos in
Baghdad.
U.S.
Blames Blast On Sabotage
On
the other hand, the Americans blamed the carnage on sabotage,
declining to give any further details.
"Someone
shot a flare into this disposal site and caused this huge
explosion," said Major Frank McClary of the U.S. 3rd Infantry
Division. "It is sabotage." He declined to give a casualty
toll, AFP reported.
“We
don't want to speculate on what caused the explosion," said U.S.
Colonel John Peabody. "There was some kind of flammable material
that was introduced by outside forces."
A
U.S. soldier, Specialist Kevin Braahm, told AFP: "It has been
confirmed that the U.S. military did not cause the explosions. There
were people on guard at the time that saw somebody shoot a flare or
something. It was not U.S. military." He added: "There was a
lot of ammo there."
"An
unknown number of individuals attacked U.S. 3rd Infantry Division
soldiers who were guarding a cache of captured Iraqi ammunition near
Baghdad this morning," the U.S. Central Command in Qatar
(Centcom) said in a statement.
"During
the attack, the assailant fired an unknown incendiary device into the
cache, causing it to catch fire and explode. The explosion caused the
destruction of the cache as well as a nearby building," Centcom
said.
Centcom
blamed the now ousted Saddam Hussein government. "The location of
the ammunition cache near a civilian population is another example of
the former regime's disregard for the safety of Iraqi citizens,"
Centcom said.
