US bombs kill more Iraqi children

12.00pm

BAGHDAD - More Iraqi children have died after US bombs hit a residential area in central Iraq a day after checkpoint killings of civilians by nervous US troops prompted Arab anger.

The latest deaths in an overnight raid on the town of Hilla were bound further to damage US efforts to win Iraqi hearts and minds - an undertaking ridiculed by Baghdad's authorities and which US officers admit is proving harder than expected.

"What has he done wrong. What has he done wrong?"

Reuters reporters with invading US and British troops said a pause of several days in their advance towards Iraq's capital - hit again on Tuesday (Wednesday NZT) by bombs and missiles - appeared to be over and the armour was on the move again.

"It seems as though the operational pause in our sector is over...We've swung from passivity to activity quite quickly," Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire said from central Iraq.

US troops have been on edge since a suicide bomber blew himself up and killed four soldiers at a checkpoint last Saturday but officers say no change has been ordered in rules of engagement.

Iraq promised more such suicide bombers, calling them "a time bomb".

The outskirts of Baghdad was again heavily bombed on Tuesday, particularly in the south. Huge plumes of white smoke rose on the horizon. Iraq said the latest attacks there had killed 24 civilians, 19 overnight and five on Tuesday.

Reuters correspondents in the city said the almost constant bombing had created a blitz-like spirit, with people feeling solidarity against the invading forces.

"Nobody wants to see the Americans win. We're willing to suffer as long as it takes but not to see them occupy our country," said Nabil Suleiman, 40, a businessman.

"We're fed up, we're terrified of this war but we're willing to put up with all this rather than see the Americans in our country ruling us," said Mona Fathi, 34, an academic.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said US-led air raids over the past day had killed a total of 56 civilians throughout the country. Iraq has put the total civilian deaths to date at 653.

Reuters reporters taken by Iraqi officials to a hospital in Hilla, about 80 km (50 miles) south of this battered city, saw the bodies of at least 11 civilians, killed when US bombs hit the residential area. Sahaf said nine of the dead were children.

"What has he done wrong, what has he done wrong?" demanded the driver of the truck carrying the bodies, as he held the corpse of an infant.

At a televised news conference on Tuesday, Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan said 6,000 volunteer fighters had arrived in Iraq. More than half were suicide fighters.

He said: "They are a time bomb, you'll hear about them soon...We want each and every one of these martyrs to do their duty and kill as many of these invading bastards as possible."

Many of the checkpoints are aimed at protecting long supply lines, often attacked by Iraqi forces and stretching some 350 km (about 220 miles) back into Kuwait.

US Marines shot dead an unarmed driver and badly wounded his passenger at a roadblock south of Baghdad, a day after seven women and children were killed in a similar checkpoint shooting near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.

US President George W. Bush told Iraqis he would pursue the 13-day-old war "until your country is free".

"We are coming with a mighty force to end the rule of your oppressors," Bush declared in a speech aimed at Iraqis.

But the checkpoint deaths were a blow to US and British hopes of persuading Iraqis to welcome an invasion whose stated goal is to oust Saddam, not combat the people.

They also fuelled anger across the Arab world.

"It was a deliberate act in cold blood to avenge September 11. I hope Bush, Blair and their families are pleased," Hamza Abdulrahman, a civil servant in Oman, said of Monday's shooting.

In allied Kuwait, US soldiers shot and wounded the driver of a car which burst past a checkpoint into a base near the Iraqi border after midnight. Kuwait said the man was a Kuwaiti army captain hurrying to work who had no hostile intent.

Iraq reported fierce fighting in and around the southern city of Nassiriya, saying the invaders had taken heavy losses.

"The blood of the enemy is flowing profusely," a military spokesman said on Iraqi television.

The United States has paid scant attention to the diplomatic fall-out from the Iraq war so far, but Secretary of State Colin Powell starts a hastily arranged trip to Europe this week.

He visits Turkey on Wednesday to try to patch ties damaged by Washington's failed effort to persuade Ankara to let US troops cross its territory to invade Iraq.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war