Zaafaraniya, April 26
Twelve Iraqi civilians were killed and many wounded in a series of huge blasts at an arms dump on the outskirts of Baghdad today. The main hospital in the district where the dump exploded said 12 persons were killed and 40 injured. The US Central Command said at least six persons were killed.
There was also confusion over the cause of the blasts. US troops blamed unidentified attackers who fired flares into the munitions store. Local residents turned their anger on the Americans, shooting and forcing them back, soldiers said.
Some soldiers were wounded, an army Sergeant-Major said at Zaafaraniya, a mixed residential and industrial suburb on the southern edge of the capital.
Earlier, Reuters photographer Yannis Behrakis had seen furious local residents throw stones at American troops.
A series of loud explosions, lasting about an hour, were heard in the city centre from about 8 a.m. local time 9.30. US troops said they were caused by controlled detonations to destroy Iraqi munitions as part of a continuing programme.
But later at the scene, an officer said assailants had sparked the chain reaction by firing flares into the dump.
A local medic travelling in an Iraqi civilian ambulance ferrying casualties between the blast scene and a hospital said there had been many victims.
Local residents said several persons were believed to be still trapped in the rubble of a wrecked building, apparently hit by an errant surface-to-surface missile from the arms storage dump.
An enraged man at the scene vented his fury at the US forces who took the capital two weeks ago.
Whatever the precise cause, the incident seemed likely to hamper US efforts to win Iraqis’ support for their presence, however pleased most people were to be rid of Saddam
Hussein. Reuters
