IRAQ: Iraq says U.S. kills up to six in Baghdad Shi'ite area.Iraqis say 30 killed in US raid at Ramadi. People collect bodies of their relatives from hospital morgue as Baghdad police find 46 bodies within 24 hours. Car bomb in central Bagh

Iraqi medical officials said at least 30 people were killed in violence overnight in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi in what local police described on Tuesday (November 14) as a U.S. military raid. A U.S. military spokeswoman said she would look into the reports. An Iraqi police source, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said U.S. forces raided the al-Dhubat district late on Monday (November 13) and several houses were destroyed. In one part of the district, a Reuters reporter saw several bodies of adult men still lying in a street, some being placed in coffins by relatives, and a number of body parts. One small structure was burnt out in that street. "Huge crimes happened at night. Huge crime (targeting) people inside their shops. They only sell and buy, they are neither resistance nor terrorists. They are not from all these things. These bodies, 25 bodies committed no serious crime or guilt," said an unidentified resident from Ramadi. Local residents, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, said U.S. tanks had fired into the area and that those who died were not militants. They criticised the U.S. forces and Shi'ite-led Iraqi government. Several said young men gathered to play a traditional street game had been attacked. Abdullah Salih, a doctor at Ramadi's main hospital, told Reuters that 35 dead had been brought in and that he believed other bodies had still not been retrieved because access to the area was limited by continuing military operations. Earlier, another doctor, Kamal al-Ani, said 30 bodies were brought in from the district, along with 17 wounded. A sourness stung the morning air in Baghdad on Tuesday as Women clad in black wept and beat their chest and faces in grief outside the morgue, Baghdad's second largest. Baghdad police recovered the bodies of 46 people around the city in the 24 hours to Monday (November 13) evening, one of the highest tolls of suspected sectarian death squad victims in recent weeks, an Interior Ministry source said. The source said most of them had been tortured, and that all of them were dumped around the city of seven million, some in garbage dumps, others by the roadside. Sunday's (November 12) toll in the capital was 22. The figures have been as high as 60 per day in recent months and the United Nations has estimated that 100 people a day are being killed. The Baghdad morgue alone took in an average of about 50 unidentified bodies a day in October, a 10 percent increase on the previous month, a source at the institution told Reuters. Many of those killed are kidnapped, tortured, shot or put to death in other ways intended to terrify the wider population. Officials say they have seen many bodies and heads mutilated by power drills. Meanwhile, a car bomb exploded close to civilians in central Baghdad on Tuesday, killing ten and wounding 25 others, police said. They said that the attack took place in al-Rusafi square of central Baghdad. Also, an additional roadside bomb went off inside a garage in eastern Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Mashtal, police said. They said that two were killed and ten others were wounded in the attack. People of a Shi'ite neighbourhood in west Baghdad mourned on Tuesday relatives killed in a U.S. raid on Monday. "We are with you Sayyid Moqtada until death", chanted mourners as they marched in a funeral procession in the street of Shula neighbourhood, carrying coffins draped in blankets. Iraqi officials said U.S. forces killed up to six people in a raid on the neighbourhood late on Monday, but the U.S. military declined to confirm any operation in the city. An interior ministry source said six people were killed and three wounded in the raid, which the source described as an airstrike. Sources at Baghdad police headquarters said five were killed and 15 wounded in the attack on the Shula district, a rare Shi'ite enclave in the mainly Sunni west of the capital. State television, controlled by the Shi'ite-led government, said nine people had been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Shula. U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver said he could not confirm reports of ongoing operations at this moment. Local residents in Shula said they heard loud explosions and gunfire throughout much of Monday evening. Washington has been pressing Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to crack down on Shi'ite militias linked to his political allies and blamed by Sunni Arabs for operating death squads. But Maliki has insisted he needs time to forge a political consensus to reduce violence. He criticised a U.S. raid last month on the Shi'ite militia stronghold of Sadr City in east Baghdad where U.S. troops were hunting a warlord known as Abu Deraa. The U.S.-sponsored national unity government, involving leaders from all communities, has struggled since it was formed six months ago to make headway in curbing the violence. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced on Sunday he would fire numerous ministers to try to improve security. After his party lost control of Congress last week, U.S. President George W. Bush was holding talks on Monday with advisers in the quest for new ideas that could stabilise Iraq and let U.S. troops return home.

ITN Source | November 14, 2006

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