Robert Fisk: US officer mistook a Reuters cameraman for a sniper. Visits site of massacre

I drove all the way to Mansur, where relatives of the 11 Iraqi civilians killed in Monday's massacre of civilians – the Americans used four 2,000lb bombs to dismember the mainly Christian families in the vain hope of killing President Saddam – still waited to retrieve the last of their dead.

As I arrived back at the Palestine Hotel, I saw the smoke of the shell that the Americans had just fired into the Reuters office. It was to take two lives, in addition to the reporter from the Arab al-Jazeera satellite channel killed a few hours earlier by an American air attack on his office. Despite two separate assurances from the American government that al-Jazeera's base of operations would not be targeted, it was destroyed.

Just an hour later, one of the tanks on the Jumhuriya Bridge fired a shell into the wreckage. Eighteen civilians – 15 of them women – were reported to be still hiding in the basement last night with no immediate hope of rescue.

The International Red Cross had tried to arrange a convoy out of Baghdad; inexplicably, it was reported that the Americans had refused it passage from the city.

At one point, Red Cross workers hoped to take a severely wounded Spanish television reporter with them – his leg had been amputated after the tank shell exploded below his office in the hotel – but he died during the afternoon. The American infantry divisional commander issued a statement that suggested the Reuters cameramen were sniping at the US tank, a remark so extraordinary – and so untrue – that it brought worldwide protests from journalists.

I don't know what it is about the street dogs of Baghdad, but they always know when the bombers are returning. Is there some change in air pressure, some high technological decibel that we humans can't hear?

The dogs always get it right. Every time they start baying, you know that the bombers are coming back. And they yelped and barked as night fell last night. And within 15 minutes, even we humans could hear the rumble of explosions from southern Baghdad.