The corridors of Samarra’s hospital bursting at the seams with corpses (AFP)

Additional Reporting By Samir Haddad, IOL Correspondent

SAMARRA, October 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Residents of the Iraqi city of Samarra started collecting the bodies of their relatives and loved ones killed in a bloody US-led "massacre" as branded by Iraq’s highest Sunni religious authority.

The stench of decomposing bodies filled the corridors of Samarra 's hospital as staff wearing surgical masks lifted corpses out of the building one after the other, shouting out names as they reached the front doors, where families waited.

Ambulances guarded by US military vehicles were going around Samarra to collect the bodies of the dead, while Iraqi national guardsmen roamed the streets in pickup trucks or stood at intersections, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Many buildings in the city's commercial district were either riddled with bullets or partially destroyed, the streets littered with burnt out vehicles.

At least 150 people were slain and scores wounded in the two-day joint offensive against Samarra, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city north of Baghdad.

According to medics and hospital officials, most of the victims were civilians.

Hundreds of Iraqi families, mostly women and children, having been lining up at the main entrances of Samarra to escape the gates of hell broken loose by the US occupation forces.

The Iraqi Red Crescent had also set up more than twenty tents on the outskirts of the city to help the wounded and destitute.

Massacre

An Iraqi boy walks ahead with a white flag as his family members take away a dead relative (AFP)

A leading Sunni Muslim group blasted the Samarra operation as a "massacre" and warned the interim government that its US-influenced strategy will plunge the country into more chaos.

"Who is going to respect [the January] elections paved by the blood of Iraqis and built on their skulls?" Asked Sheikh Mohammad Bashar Al-Faidi, spokesman for the respected Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), during a press conference at Baghdad 's Umm Al-Qura mosque on Monday, October 3.

"The United States is the world’s most terrorist country in the modern age."

A resident of the war-battered city, who went under the alias of Abi Al-Qiqaa, is an eyewitness to the US-led massacre.

He told the same press conference he saw in one of many heartrending scenes US forces shooting dead a child crossing a street.

"They kept firing at him though he was dead," he said.

In another horrific incident, the eyewitness added, US forces sprayed a civilian car with bullets, killing all inside including five children.

"Two elderly women, to mention but a few examples, were crushed to death by a US tank.

"The United States is the world’s most terrorist country in the modern age," said Faidi (AFP)

Doctors inside Samrra’s only hospital complained of sever blood and medicine shortage to help the tens of people rushed in.

Despite the bloodshed and destruction, Iraqi Interior Minister Falah Al-Naqib said the mission was the most successful to date.

US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was also quick to praise the cooperation of 3,000 American troops and 2,000 Iraqi National Guards in the offensive.

"The reporting from the ground is that things have gone well," the senior White House advisor told CNN television, although she cautioned that it was "premature" to say that the operation was "wrapped up" since "insurgencies have a tendency to wax and wane."

The bloody onslaught is a jarring reminder of US raids into the restive city of Fallujah , west of Baghdad , that claimed hundreds of lives, mostly women and children.

The outskirts of Fallujah were smoldering again overnight after US warplanes bombed a building, claiming between 10 and 15 "insurgents" were inside.