Al-JazeeraQatar, Saturday, March 22, 2003. Eric
Mueller comments: ON the second day of the
Anglo-American war against Iraq
all the Iraqi websites, even that
of the Iraqi Mission to the
United Nations, have gone off
line. Getting information from
the "other side of the hill" is
therefore not easy. And that is exactly what the
war leaders in Washington and
London want. In fact the US media are just
utterly ghastly. I'm accustomed
to their cowardice and mendacity
as regards coverage of the Arab
world, but these days they have
out done themselves. There is no
coverage of the war; there is
only a cover-up. The broadcasts
are pure Psy-Ops from beginning
to end. BBC TV, which I can receive at
times, is better, but still
intent on presenting a thoroughly
sanitized version of the war. Arabic satellite channels like
al-Jazeera seem to be offering a
lot more information, but, alas,
I don't have satellite. Occasionally, however,
al-Jazeera puts an important news
bulletin up on its website. I
just finished translating what is
right now the latest such news
report below. Arabist Eric Mueller is
this website's expert on Middle
Eastern affairs. |
American
forces acknowledge stiff resistance in Umm
Qasr Fifty
Iraqis killed with US Airplanes bomb
Basra Al-Jazeera's
correspondent in the southern Iraqi city
of Basra has reported that more than 50
Iraqis, and one Russian citizen, were
killed when F-16 aircraft intensively
bombed positions in the city of Basra,
south of the capital Baghdad. The
correspondent added that a family of four,
including a one-year-old child, was killed
in the bombing in which cluster bombs were
used. Meanwhile the Iraqi Information
Minister, Muhammad Sa`id as-Sahhaf,
has described as "pure propaganda" what
the Americans and British are saying about
having achieved victories in the various
areas they have passed through. Al-Sahhaf said
that everything that has been said
about Umm Qasr and other cities is not
true, and he declared that the Iraqi
forces in positions on al-Faw
peninsula, and in Umm Qasr,
al-Nasiriyya, Umm al-Shaykh, al-Bateha,
and Qa`idat al-Imam `Ali are still
strongly resisting. They have inflicted
casualties in the ranks of the enemy,
and enemy forces have been forced to
withdraw from some positions. Speaking at a press conference in
Baghdad, al-Sahhaf denied that the
prisoners displayed by the American and
British forces are Iraqi soldiers. He said
that the western forces, whom he described
as "mercenaries" are "lying", and that
they had been seizing civilians and
kidnapping residents of the city of al-Faw
"to display them on television screens as
if they were surrendering soldiers." American Marines confirm that they are
still meeting with Iraqi resistance in the
Port of Umm Qasr in the south of the
country. The commander of one of the
Marine units said that the American and
British forces had captured between 400
and 450 Iraqis in the fighting around the
Port of Umm Qasr and the nearby al-Faw
Peninsula that commands the entrance to
the Gulf. The American Defense Secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld declared yesterday,
Friday, that the American and British
forces had seized control of Umm Qasr. Meanwhile, violent battles are raging
between the invading forces and the Iraqi
military west of the city of al-Basra.
Captain Andrew Berger of the US
Marines said American tanks are now waging
a major battle with Iraqi forces on the
western outskirts of al-Basra. In remarks
to journalists he added "I can say that it
is a major battle." A British spokesman in
al-Sayliya Base in Doha, Qatar, said that
the forces led by the United States are
trying to negotiate the "surrender of
al-Basra." Al-Jazeera's Tehran correspondent
reports that sources among al-Jama`ah
al-Islamiyyah and the Kurdish group
Jama`at Ansar al-Islam in the north of
Iraq say that their positions are now
being subjected to an intense American
attack that has left dozens killed and
wounded. A number of the wounded have been
taken to Iranian territory. The two
organizations are located in northern Iraq
in areas adjacent to land controlled by
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by
Jalal al-Talibani. Victims
of the aggressionIraq's Information Minister, Muhammad
Sa`id al-Sahhaf has stated in a press
conference that the Anglo-American
aggression, between last night and until
this morning, wounded 207 people. He said
that the US Defense Department claimed
that they were attacking military
positions, and he demanded that
journalists visit the hospitals to "see
for themselves the 207 military
positions." Al-Sahhaf also said that the Iraqi
President, Saddam Hussein had
ordered that American and British
prisoners of war be treated "in accordance
with the Geneva Convention." He said that
"we will adhere to that in compliance with
his orders, "despite all the loathsome
crimes that this gang of international
scoundrels has committed against
Iraqis." The Iraqi Minister had declared
yesterday, Friday, that Iraq will "not
apply" international law to prospective
prisoners, saying instead that they would
be treated "like mercenaries and war
criminals." He had said that how they
would be treated would soon be known. Saturday
night's air raidsThe Iraqi capital awoke to three
violent explosions that shook whole
sections of the city after witnessing the
previous night the most violent air raids
that the invader forces have launched
since the beginning of the aggression
Thursday morning. Officials in the American Defense
Department (the Pentagon) said that
hundreds of bombers and fighter-bombers
took part in the operations as the intense
air war against Iraq began. In addition,
about ten warships fired cruise
missiles. Admiral Matthew Moffet,
commander of the Kitty Hawk battle group
declared that the American warships had
fired about 320 Tomahawk cruise missiles
at targets around Baghdad just yesterday,
Friday. He confirmed the participation of
American navy F-18 Hornet and F14 Tomcat
fighter planes in the attack. British
Tornado planes also took part. Other air raids were also carried out
in the last 24 hours in al-Mawsil province
in the north of Iraq. Al-Jazeera's
correspondent there reports that numerous
explosions could be heard in the city's
environs. He added that other explosions
were heard in the direction of the
province of Dahouk in the farthest
northern part of Iraq on the border with
Turkey. In addition there were powerful
blasts coming from the province of
Kirkuk. Source: al-Jazeera
+ agencies. |