| New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com |
U.S. bombs kill 18 Kurds
The bombing came after Kurdish soldiers and U.S. Special Forces called in air strikes during a heavy firefight with Iraqi tanks at a strategic crossroads south of Irbil. "I was blown off my feet when the bomb hit the ground," said Abdul Rahman Kawrini, a Kurdish frontline commander. "I saw oceans of fire. There were people screaming. Terrible screams. There were pieces of flesh and blood everywhere." The convoy's 11 vehicles lay crumpled and scorched around a 6-foot crater near the recently captured village of Dibagah. BBC correspondent John Simpson was traveling with the coalition troops. "This is just a scene from hell here," he said. "All the vehicles on fire, there are bodies burning around me, bodies lying around, bits of bodies on the ground." An abandoned Iraqi tank lay just off the road, and only 200 yards ahead, U.S. soldiers continued to call in air strikes as they fired anti-tank guns to hold off advancing Iraqi troops. Seventeen Kurdish soldiers and a Kurdish translator working for the BBC died. The wounded included a top Kurdish commander, Wajeh Barzani, a younger brother of Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls this part of Iraq. Two or three Americans may have been injured. Hoshyar Zebari, a senior party member, said he "didn't think" any died. Zebari pledged that the deadly friendly fire attack "will not undermine our resolve, our commitment to work with the U.S. Special Forces" to topple Saddam Hussein. U.S. commandos have been helping Kurdish "peshmergas" - which translates to "those who face death" - seize enemy territory in the north. The elite American fighters joined the Kurds here early yesterday and forced an armed Iraqi column to pull back. When the enemy appeared to be readying a counterattack shortly after noon, the coalition troops ordered in an air strike. Near the fight "I actually saw the bomb dropping from the aircraft," reported Simpson, who was injured in the blast. "It was white, painted with a red nose cone." Several vehicles packed with ammunition exploded repeatedly. "I think the lines of combat were too close," Zebari said. The injured Kurds were taken to The Surgical Center for War Victims, an Irbil hospital. Hundreds gathered outside, as Massoud Barzani and the top ranks of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, along with U.S. officers, visited the wounded. The crowd fell silent as two U.S. jets roared low overhead. Wajeh Barzani was later flown to an American air base in Germany for further treatment. Coalition forces have been plagued by friendly fire incidents. To date, at least 57 U.S. and British soldiers have been killed by their own comrades. The U.S. Central Command said it was investigating yesterday's bombing. |