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BAGHDAD,
March 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Five Iraqi civilians
were killed, including a woman, Monday, March 24, when U.S.-led aircraft
hit houses in a densely populated area of Baghdad, residents said.
One
house was destroyed when the missile struck in Al-Azamiyah, residents
told an Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer on the scene.
Casualties
had been removed from the area, according to the photographer, who saw
piles of rubble.
Baghdad
was battered by dozens of explosions from U.S.-led air raids late
Sunday, March 23, and early Monday in the most violent bombing of the
city since more than 300 cruise missiles hit it in a "shock and
awe" assault Friday, March 21, night.
Information
Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf told a press conference earlier in the
day that British and U.S. air raids around Iraq have caused hundreds of
civilian casualties during the last 24 hours.
"Preliminary
figures" showed Sunday's raids had resulted in 14 dead and 122
wounded in the southern port of Basra, 10 dead and 32 wounded in the
Shiite Muslim pilgrimage city of Karbala, 194 wounded in the capital and
63 wounded in Babylon, Sahhaf said.
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U.S.-led
raids on Baghdad leave five civilians dead
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The
U.S. forces also staged earlier in the day its
first air strikes on Iraqi frontlines between the key northern city of Kirkuk and Kurdish rebel-held town of
Chamchamal.
The
Qatari satellite channel, Al-Jazeera also reported that the main
northern Iraqi city of Mosul was rocked by three fresh U.S.-led air
raids on Monday, the last of which hit at about 7:20 am (0420 GMT).
On
Sunday, 77 civilians were killed
and 366 others injured by U.S. air strikes on the southern Iraqi city of
Basra on, Information
But
the U.S.-led occupation forces met stiffer-than -expected resistance
from Iraqi civilians that left them licking their wounds following a
day of setbacks
in their invasion of Iraq with the Iraqi television running film footage
showing a U.S. Apache helicopter that had been shot down over Karbala,
south of Baghdad.
Iraqi
Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said Iraqi troops have
foiled attempted British and U.S. landings in key towns both southwest
and north of the capital.
“They
tried the same thing, in the north, near Kirkuk, but were pursued and
fled," the minister added, after the U.S.-led occupation warplanes
mounted the morning air raids on Iraqi frontlines near the oil-rich
city.
In
another slap in the face of U.S. approach towards Baghdad, a U.S.
officer said a howling sandstorm in the desert of southern Iraq, not to
mention Iraqi stiff resistance, is slowing the advance toward the
capital of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division.
