'Wedding video' clouds US denials

The film, broadcast by Associated Press Television News, knits together a home movie of a wedding and APTN video of the aftermath of Wednesday's attack.

Some victims and survivors of the air strike appear to be present in the footage of the wedding celebrations.

The US has insisted its target was not a wedding but foreign fighters.

It says that its soldiers were responding to fire and there was no evidence of a wedding.

The incident occurred in the early hours of Wednesday at the village of Makr al-Deeb, in desert near the Syrian border.

Associated Press has stressed that it cannot confirm the authenticity of the video of the wedding celebrations.

'Traditional wedding'

The agency says the material broadcast was taken from several hours of footage allegedly filmed by Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities.

He was among those killed, it says.

The film opens with gleaming pick-up trucks - some decorated with ribbons - speeding through the desert apparently en route to the wedding.

They arrive at the celebrations to the sounds of guns being fired in the air - a traditional celebration - and ululating.

The film then shows men dancing along to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular wedding singer also hired for the occasion.

Ali and his brother Mohamed were buried in Baghdad on Thursday, mourners said.

Clearly visible on the wedding footage is a man playing electric organ.

The footage is spliced with APTN film of the face of a corpse after the attack. It appears to be the same man, wearing the same shirt.

AP says a reporter and a photographer who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video.

It also says its footage of the scene following the attack shows remnants of musical instruments, pots and pans, and brightly coloured beddings used for celebrations, scattered around a bombed-out tent.

Survivors of the attack have told journalists the wedding party had ended and guests were in bed when bombing began.

When people ran out of their homes, they allege they were shot at by Americans.

They say over 40 people died, including at least 10 children.

But these allegations have been vehemently and repeatedly denied by US forces in Iraq.

'No evidence'

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the chief US military spokesman in Iraq, said on Saturday.

The men were almost all military-aged, no family elders that one would expect to see at an event of this type," he said.

He has denied any children were killed in the attack.

Gen Kimmitt said the site looked "somewhat of a dormitory. There were more than 300 sets of bedding gear in it and about 100 sets of prepackaged clothing.

"It's suspected that when foreign fighters come in from other countries they change their clothes into typical Iraqi clothing sets."

He said ID-making machines and "the capability to make exit visas for Iraq" were among suspicious items found.

There has been no specific response as yet to the footage released by APTN.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3741223.stm