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A
group of men, seen in this image from video, look at the wrecked
fuselage bearing markings of guided missile in Baghdad
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BAGHDAD,
April 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Anglo-American warplanes
intensified their air strikes on Baghdad Thursday, April 3, killing 27
civilians and wounding 193 others, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed
Said al-Sahhaf said.
He
added that early Thursday U.S. and British forces dropped cluster bombs
on the Al-Doura area of Baghdad killing 14 people and injuring 66, while
raids on Mahmoudia district, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Baghdad,
killed five and injured 59.
In
another attack, eight civilians were killed and five were wounded
Thursday by a missile that hit a vegetable market at Nahrawan on the
southeastern edge of Baghdad, an Iraqi hospital source confirmed said.
The
casualties were taken to Baghdad's al-Kindi hospital, an AFP
photographer reported.
The
Doha-based U.S. Central Command announced it was investigating the
report on the market attack.
U.S.-led
bombing raids around the outskirts of Baghdad appeared to have been
intensively stepped up on Thursday afternoon.
Repeated
air strikes pounded the southern edges of the capital, whose
peripheries, according to U.S. commanders, are controlled by the
American troops.
Iraq's
elite Republican Guard forces, in addition, have come under intense and
regular bombardment.
U.S.
Forces Nowhere Near Baghdad
Sahhaf
also categorically denied claims that U.S. and British
"mercenaries" were 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the centre
of Baghdad or its main airport.
"They
are not even within 100 miles (160 kilometers), they are on the move
everywhere. They are a snake moving in the desert," he said,
referring to U.S. and British troops as mercenaries and U.S. Vice
President Dick Cheney as "despicable".
"If
that's the case we will welcome them with music and flowers," added
Sahhaf mockingly.
"They
remain trapped in combat with Iraqi resistance in every major town. It
is not enough to say heavy casualties. We are destroying tanks,
personnel carriers, killing them and we will continue," boasted the
Iraqi official spokesman since the start
of the U.S.-led invasion.
Saddam
Airport Under Iraqi Control
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An
Iraqi police officer walks at Saddam Hussein International Airport
outside of Baghdad Thursday
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Baghdad's
Saddam International Airport was Thursday afternoon still under the full
control of the Iraqi authorities, an AFP correspondent reported.
No
bombing or fighting were visible at the airport, which lies 20
kilometers (12 miles) from the center of Baghdad.
"The
airport is safe," airport manager Muafiq Abdullah al-Jaburi told
journalists escorted there by the Iraqi Information Ministry.
Although
airplanes have neither landed nor taken off at the airport since March
19, a day before the launch of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, Jaburi said
that employees were "continuing to go about their work normally,
according to set rotas."
"Maybe
the Americans occupied another airport in the desert," joked
Jaburi.
The
airport's radar system and other installations "were hit in the
first days of the war but the airport is currently safe," he said.
Al-Jazeera
TV channel aired live broadcast from inside the airport showing the
situation there was very calm and activity was as normal.
People
were seen moving about and an aircraft on the runway, with no sign of
Anglo-American troops as earlier alleged by the Americans.
"I
can confirm they're outside the airport," claimed Major Randi
Steffy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Central Command in Qatar.
Sahhaf
asserted that Iraqi fighters south of Karbala shot
down on Wednesday, April 2, an F-18 aircraft, an Apache combat helicopter and
a Chinook troop carrying helicopter.
Saddam
Fedayeen had also destroyed three tanks and a personnel carrier south of
Karbala and another Apache in the southern Muthana province, he said,
adding that the same unit destroyed another tank in Muthana.
A
U.S. commander claimed Thursday U.S. forces were within 15 kilometers
(nine miles) of Baghdad center near its main airport and controlled the
southern approaches to the capital.
