ICRC says blown bridge cuts access to wounded civilians
BAGHDAD, Apr 5 (DPA) The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today access to hospitals South of Baghdad was cut with the demolition of a bridge, sparking concern for hundreds of wounded Iraqis in the area.
Following the destruction of a bridge on the main highway leading to the South of the country, the ICRC's staff in Baghdad said they are no longer able to assist victims in areas such as Hilla, Kerbala, Nasiriya and Najaf - areas of fierce fighting and coalition bombing recently.
"As the military situation continues to change very fast, the ICRC's concern is growing over the fate of the civilian population caught up in fighting in these areas South of Baghdad," it said in a statement.
ICRC spokesman Roland Huguenin-Benjamin said one hospital South of the city took in more than 300 wounded soldiers and civilians overnight Thursday.
"Many of them were military.
I do not have definite figures, but probably two-thirds military, one-third civilians who were taken to various hospitals over the past 24 hours," Huguenin-Benjamin said.
On Tuesday, Huguenin-Benjamin visited a hospital in Hilla, 100 kilometres South of Baghdad, where doctors had been "overwhelmed" with more than 280 casualties, including women and children.
"There were lots and lots of dead bodies that were practically dismembered by the violence of the explosion they had been subjected to," he said.
"This was a horrific sight." The ICRC said bombardments carried on day and night on Baghdad with no let-up, and explosions were heard coming from outlying areas of the capital.
The city's electricity supply has been cut.
Blasts rock Central Baghdad, citizens flee BAGHDAD, Apr 5 (Reuters) At least five large explosions rocked an area close to Central Baghdad early today after a blistering night-time barrage from US planes and artillery against the city's Eastern flank.
Among the targets hit was the Al-Mamoun Telecommunications Centre, one of the city's biggest.
It has been struck before during the 17-day US-led war to oust president Saddam Hussein.
Eyewitnesses said they saw many people leaving in cars crammed with blankets and belongings.
Many appeared to be heading out of the city.
"The bombing has been very, very intense.
There are explosions to the Southeast, the Southwest and now near the centre," said Reuters correspondent Hassan Hafidh.
He said a curtain of thick smoke stretched from the Southwest to the Northwest of the city, possibly caused by the lighting of more oil trenches.
Iraqis lit trenches near the start of the war to try to confuse US pilots bombing Baghdad.
Today's air raids came a day after US soldiers seized the city's airport in the Southwest, their biggest prize so far.
US military sources said at least 20 Abrams battle tanks and 10 Bradley fighting vehicles were rumbling up the main Southern highway on Saturday on a Reconnaissance mission through the Dawra suburb of Baghdad.
Much of the overnight bombing appeared to target the Eastern approaches to Baghdad.
Reuters correspondents in the city said they heard intense blasts of artillery fire through the night, as well as surface-to-air missiles and bombs going off in the distance.
"It has really intensified.
You can see explosions across the whole front, missiles, anti-aircraft fire, cruise missiles," said Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis.
The fight gave many Baghdad residents their first close-up look at the battle.
Iraq has denied that US-led troops are closing in and has said that the troops at the airport are on an "isolated island." "This is by far the most fighting that we have seen so far in the war.
You can smell the powder from the shells in the centre," said Oweis, who estimated the night-time battle was taking place about 32 km from the city centre.
"We used to hear everything, but now we can see it." US commanders moved to beef up their presence overnight at the airport, calling in soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division and the 94th battalion to reinforce the 3rd infantry division which spearheaded the attack on the facility.
The arrival of the extra troops raises the number of US soldiers at the airport from an estimated 1,500, possibly opening the way for it to be used as a forward base in any battle for the sprawling city of five million people.
US military officials say any battle for Baghdad will not be over quickly.
Troops could face street-to-street fighting and guerrilla warfare, including suicide attacks.
Iraqi officials say thousands of Arab volunteers are ready for suicide missions against US-led forces.
In an apparent effort to rally the Iraqi people, Iraqi television showed footage of a man it said was Saddam touring the streets of his bombed capital on Friday.
Smiling, he greeted mobs of chanting admirers, smoke rising from fires burning in the distance.
Some people kissed him on his cheeks and hands and he held up a small child.
"We'll defend you with our blood and souls, Saddam," one man told him.
WTC bombing convictions upheld NEW YORK, Apr 5 (Reuters) A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, seen now as a deadly warning of the landmark's destruction eight years later.
The 2nd US circuit court of appeals yesterday rejected the appeal of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who is serving a life term for orchestrating the 1993 attack that killed six and injured more than 1,000 and for a second scheme to bomb a dozen US passenger jets.
Yousef is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda operative captured last month and identified by Washington as the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed about 3,000 people.
The appeals panel, in its 186-page ruling, also affirmed the convictions of Yousef's co-defendants, Eyad Ismoil, who drove the van in the twin towers attack, and Abdul Murad, who was involved in the airplane plot.
The defendants' appeals including allegations that US district judge Kevin Duffy, who presided over their trials, was unfair.
"Judge Duffy carefully, impartially and commendably conducted the two lengthy and extraordinarily complex trials from which these appeals were taken.
The fairness of the proceedings over which he presided is beyond doubt," the appeals panel said.
The World Trade Center explosion on February 26, 1993, was called by prosecutors at the time "the worst terrorist attack" on US soil.
Yousef fled New York after the blast.
He was one of the world's most wanted fugitives until he was arrested in February 1995 in Islamabad, Pakistan, and returned to New York.
He was convicted in November 1997.
During the trial, a secret service agent testified Yousef had boasted about planning the blast and said he had hoped one tower would fall on the other, killing thousands.
Yousef was also convicted of being the architect of a scheme to murder about 4,000 passengers over a 48-hour period in January 1995 as they returned on Delta, Northwest and United Flights to the United States from the far East.
When Yousef was sentenced in 1998, Duffy described him as an "apostle of evil." During that hearing, Yousef criticized the United States for its support of Israel.
"Yes I am a terrorist and I'm proud of it.
I support terrorism as long as it is used against the United States and Israel," Yousef said during the hearing.
The airline plot was discovered in January 1995 when a fire broke out in a Manila apartment shared by Yousef and Murad.
Authorities believe Mohammed, who also lived in the apartment, helped devise the plot.
When the Philippine national police searched the apartment, they found explosives, bomb-making manuals, timers and a Toshiba laptop computer containing flight information, detonation times and a letter claiming responsibility for the planned bombings.
Yousef and Mohammed fled to Pakistan after the fire, but Murad returned to the apartment and was arrested.
Yousef, who used about a dozen aliases, has said he is from Pakistan and was a trained electronics engineer and explosives expert.
He gave his birth date as April 27, 1968.
Mother to die for sacrificing children DHAKA, Apr 5 (DPA) A criminal court in a Northern Bangladeshi town sentenced to death a Hindu mother for slaughtering her two young children as human sacrifices to the goddess Kali, local officials said today.
Judge Abu Ahmad Zamadar of a district court in Sirajganj town handed down the death verdict after declaring Shibani Uras guilty of murdering her seven-year-old daughter Shwapna and five-year-old son Avinash.
Government prosecutors said Uras had confessed to having slaughtered her children to fulfil a divine command from the goddess.
The bizarre murder took place more than two years ago in the village Gulta near the town, 180 kilometres North of the capital Dhaka.
After killing her children, Uras reportedly rushed to the local temple and surrendered to the image of Kali.
The mother with blood stained clothes furiously rang the temple's bill, which attracted villagers who handed her to police.
About us | Advertisers | Other Publications | Subscriptions | Advertising Weather Weather | Letters | Search | Suggestions | Send Mail | Vaishnodevi ________________________________________________________ (c) 1998, The Kashmir Times Press Pvt.
Ltd., Residency Road, Jammu Tawi.