Party locals provoked attack, victims say

"I heard something blow, and I fell against the wall behind me," said the 35-year-old Kurdish housewife. "My arm was hurt, and so was my head." Two of her daughters were also wounded.

The bomb - which killed two people and injured at least a dozen Sunday - was American, but locals say the blame for the civilian casualties lies with Baath Party officials.

While the bulk of the Iraqi Army fought on low hills to the west, about 15 Iraqi intelligence agents and Baath Party officials shot at the attacking Kurds and Americans from within this city of more than 60,000 people.

The fanatical followers of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein hoped to score a propaganda victory by drawing return fire to places where civilians would be hit.

Near Ain Sifni's Baathist headquarters, another American bomb had torn a crater large enough to swallow a dump truck. Nearby houses were damaged in the blast, but there were no injuries as people fled the obvious target before the fighting.

One Baathist official, Ahmed Shehap, whom locals call Ahmed the Cow, began his fight near the headquarters, said Shevan Mohammed Taher, 21, a taxi driver.

Shehap made his way street by street, stopping just behind Taher's house, the last in town. Shehap and another man rode in a car equipped with rocket launchers, and Taher said he warned the two not to shoot near his house or they would attract the bombers. "They told me to go in or they would kill me," Taher said.

Shehap fired his missiles and sped away. Five minutes later, a bomb hit, churning a hole in the asphalt 15 feet deep and injuring Taher's mother and five siblings. Nearby buildings also were hit.

Every window in Taher's house was smashed. Inside, furniture was scarred by flying glass. Two taxis were destroyed.

"We shudder after all that noise," said Najah Abdullah, 44, Taher's mother. "We're scared. We're not well, mentally."

In the hardest-hit house, blood mixed with salt and rice on the kitchen floor. Seventeen-year-old Hassan Abdul Rahman's sister-in-law was hit by shrapnel in the face and leg, he said. She survived and was taken to the hospital.

But Hassan's father was killed. He was in the backyard checking on the fight when the bomb hit. The explosion peppered him with shrapnel, threw him against barrels of flaming heating oil and crushed him under a piece of his roof.

"It's not the Americans, it's the Baathist agent. He was here. It's his fault," said Abdul Rahman Hassan Hussein, 50, Hassan's brother-in-law.

Hassan stood in the wreckage of his home. "Let the Americans come," Hassan said. "Let the Kurds come. We don't want the Baathists to be here anymore."