Red Cross: US attack on Iraqi wedding party ''violates international human rights''

The Americans said they were firing on suspected foreign fighters but locals insisted it was a wedding party.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the attack "violates international human rights".

"Even if (you came under) fire, there are rules of proportion in retaliation and the absolute need to prevent civilian casualties," ICRC spokeswoman Nada Dumani said.

The US attack was apparently in response to people firing in the air. (Albawaba.com)

http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=277254&lang=e&dir=news

More than 40 people were killed in a US air strike on a suspected safe house used by foreign fighters near the Iraqi-Syrian border early Wednesday, coalition officials said Thursday.

“At 3:00 AM Wednesday coalition forces carried out a military operation on a house suspected of sheltering foreign fighters ... A helicopter fired on the house, killing 41 people,” an official told reporters.

The official said the air attack was ordered after people in the building opened fire on coalition forces.

Residents of the western desert town of Qaim on the Syrian border said US helicopters targeted a wedding party, apparently after people had fired in the air, a traditional way to celebrate in the Arab world.

The Arab satellite news channel Al-Arabiya aired footage of bodies wrapped in blankets and loaded on trucks, and said the dead included women and children.

It quoted witnesses as saying that aircraft also destroyed other houses, apart from where the wedding party took place.

The US military did not directly confirm or deny the incident, but said US forces raiding the suspected safe house in the open desert near Syria called for “close air support” early

Nine civilians were killed and 16 others wounded overnight in the central Iraqi city of Karbala, a medic here said on Thursday, while a guard at a Shiite shrine claimed coalition planes targeted militiamen.

“During the night, nine dead civilians and 16 wounded, among them women and children, were brought in,” said Ali Aradawi, who heads the emergency room at the main hospital in Karbala, where US forces and Shiite militiamen have been engaged in several weeks of fierce clashes.

A guard at one of the main Shiite shrines said “fighter planes fired rockets between the Hussein and Abbas mausoleums against militiamen of the Mehdi Army, killing and wounding a number of people.”

“The clashes lasted from midnight to two a.m. (2000 GMT to 2200 GMT Wednesday),” said Rassem Hussein Massawi, a guard at the Imam Hussein mausoleum.

A medic said the militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr refused to be treated at the hospital in the Shiite holy city for fear it may be searched by the US-led coalition forces.

A military spokesman in Baghdad said he had not received any report of the overnight clashes, but coalition forces said Camp Kilo in Karbala was attacked by mortar fire.

“No coalition soldiers were injured, no damages reported,” the coalition’s multinational division said in a statement.

Karbala, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad, was seized by Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia at the start of last month in an uprising that swept across central and southern Iraq against the US-led occupation.

A US soldier was killed and three others wounded in a grenade attack on Thursday in central Baghdad, the military said.

“One US soldier was killed and three wounded when their unit was attacked by hand grenades early May 20 in central Baghdad,” the US-led coalition said in a statement that gave no further details.

The latest casualty takes the US military death toll in Iraq to 789 since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003. This figure includes 575 troops killed in action.

The United States on Wednesday asked other nations to provide more troops for Iraq to protect UN staff who will help organise national elections next year.

“We must expand international security forces to support the return of United Nations international personnel to Iraq,” US deputy ambassador James Cunningham told the UN Security Council.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan pulled out all non-Iraqi personnel in October, several weeks after a bomb attack on the UN’s Baghdad headquarters killed 22 people.

But with the United Nations involved in helping Iraq prepare for its first post-Saddam Hussein elections in January, Cunningham urged other countries to contribute to the safeguarding of UN staff.

“The ability of the United Nations to continue its vital role in assisting Iraqis to prepare for elections depends on its security. We urge the international community to participate in this important task,” he said.

Annan has repeatedly said that the security situation is a major factor in whether a large-scale UN return to Iraq could take place. International staff currently make only short-term visits to the country.

The Times newspaper of London on Tuesday reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the chief US ally in Iraq, would order 3,000 more troops to the country next week.

But with an increasingly bloody insurgency challenging US plans in Iraq, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Spain have opted to pull their troops out.

Cunningham and British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry briefed the Security Council on the situation in Iraq, and both expressed regret over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners which has helped galvanise anger across the globe.

Cunningham also touched on one of the sticking points in initial council discussions on a new resolution on Iraq—how much control Iraqis will have over their own defence after self-rule begins June 30.

The ambassador said that the current multinational force (MNF) would remain in Iraq after that date but said “coordination and consultative arrangements” would be made with the new Iraqi government.

“Continued MNF operations after June 30 will be necessary to ensure Iraq’s security and progress in its political transition. We recognise the need for a close partnership with the Iraqi people and Iraqi forces,” he said.

“The fight against terror, and for Iraq’s security and stability, will be a shared fight.”

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that US-led forces would remain in Iraq for a “considerable period” after the handover.

Many of the details of the handover are to be spelled out in the Security Council resolution.

With Annan’s envoy Lakhdar Brahimi still in Baghdad holding talks on the formation of a caretaker government, Britain and the United States are leading informal talks on the drafting of the resolution.

Two sessions have already been held and a third was set for Thursday afternoon, diplomats said.

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