Republican Palace under bombing

WASHINGTON, April 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Ignoring civilian casualties in a deadly war now dragging on for its third week, leading U.S. newspapers Tuesday, April 8, focused on the possible demise of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad during a bombing raid by U.S.-led invasion forces.

In Washington, a U.S. official said warplanes Monday bombed a building in Baghdad where intelligence information indicated that Iraqi leaders including Saddam and his sons may have been staying.

"Obviously we hope that some part of the leadership was taken out of action," an anonymous official in Washington was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

But witnesses in the Iraqi capital reported that at least 14 civilians were killed in the bombing, a part most of the U.S. made a little mention of.

USA Today said "U.S. warplanes dropped four 2,000-pound, satellite-guided bombs ... 'bunker-buster' bombs"' on the target.

The Washington Times said the bombs hit the al Saa restaurant in the al-Mansur residential area, where a "sensitive intelligence source" reported Saddam and Baath Party leaders were meeting with some 30 intelligence officials "behind or beneath the restaurant."

The al-Mansur district, where Saddam allegedly appeared in public on Friday, the daily said, is a residential area.

"If he was in that facility, he would most likely be dead," a U.S. official told The Los Angeles Times, adding that the intelligence report was "the first (tip) that was fairly specific" about Saddam's whereabouts since the start of the war.

The bombing target "was not a government facility," said the Los Angeles Times, adding that it was "just out in the community somewhere."

Civilian Casualties Sidelined

An Iraqi civilian injured during U.S. bombing

Civilian deaths are mostly forgotten in the U.S. press reports which shed a light on the U.S. and British officials' statements that civilians are not targeted in the bombings, include the use of the deadly cluster bombs.

But there is a broad clear line between reconciliatory statements and facts on the ground.

On Aril 3, Anglo-American warplanes intensified their air strikes on Baghdad, killing 27 civilians and wounding 193 others, according to the Iraqi government.

On March 31, countrymen in Janabiyah village on the southeastern edge of Baghdad said that two missiles fired by U.S.-led warplanes caught five sleeping families on a farm, leaving 20 dead, including 11 children.

On March 28, some 55 Iraqi civilians were killed and 50 others injured when U.S. and British warplanes bombarded a poor-inhabited residential marketplace in the Iraqi capital.

On March 26, some 29 Iraqi civilians were killed and many others were injured when the U.S.-led forces pounded a residential area in Baghdad and its outskirts.

On the same day, U.S. forces backed by tanks killed 650 Iraqis in the central town of An-Najaf, according to the U.S. military reports. A further 250 were killed in two separate incidents on the east bank of the Euphrates and another 100 on a bridge across the river.

On March 27, eight Iraqi civilians were killed and 44 wounded in an Anglo-American bombardment of a quarter housing employees of the roads and bridges in a residential area to the south of Baghdad.