BAGHDAD, 11 April 2003 — Around 20 bodies and burned out cars littered the streets of the southwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Al-Dora yesterday, an AFP photographer reported. Bodies, including those of children, were still strewn over the road between Al-Dora and the international airport, which is under the control of US forces.
The putrid, fly-covered corpses were being buried in a mass grave along the side of the road by volunteers whose noses were covered with scarves against the stench, according to the photographer. Some of the corpses were in or under the charred vehicles. Dead children lay on the side of the road, covered in sheets. One family, two of whose members were completely incinerated, died in the back of a pickup truck.
“If the price of freedom is this, we don’t want it,” said one Iraqi helping at the scene. A gutted white Mercedes car sat at the roadside, a white flag still fluttering from its antenna. A US officer at the scene said Saddam’s Fedayeen paramilitary militia attacked an American convoy which retaliated, causing the deaths on Monday. Witnesses, however, said that US soldiers opened fire on cars carrying civilians they thought posed a threat on Wednesday.
Iraqis, meanwhile, yesterday looted the deserted luxury homes of senior figures of Saddam Hussein’s regime, including his son Uday, as US Marines came under heavy fire from pro-regime pockets of resistance. After the initial euphoria with the fall of Baghdad, looters also turned their attention to the German Embassy and the French cultural center, another AFP photographer witnessed.
Gangs of looters, many of them armed, roamed the streets of Baghdad yesterday, ransacking offices and government buildings as US troops looked on. Looters drove tractors, pickup trucks and trailers — and even a large bus — up to a large villa belonging to Tareq Aziz, Saddam’s deputy prime minister. They stole everything from furniture and paintings to chandeliers and curtains, and stripped the electrical wires from the villa’s main switchboard.
A stark reminder that not everyone in Baghdad was pleased to see US troops in the city came earlier when Marines were attacked by forces loyal to Saddam along the northern banks of the Tigris River. One Marine died and 20 were wounded in the exchange at a mosque and a presidential palace complex after receiving a tip-off that Saddam himself was inside, said Maj. Rod Legowski, liaison officer of the 3rd Infantry Division.
Baghdadis were awakened yesterday to a series of loud blasts on the city’s outskirts around 7:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) while US planes roared overhead. The night, however, was quiet for the first time since the war to oust Saddam’s regime began on March 20.
In the Jadria and Hay Babel areas on the eastern bank of the Tigris, the villas of Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, Saddam’s daughter Hala, his half-brother Watban, and army generals, were systematically ransacked. Uday’s villa was totally stripped except for a fixed wrought iron barbecue in the middle of the garden.
A truck outside Uday’s house was laden with a huge oak table and gold chairs, while a painting of Saddam was left abandoned on the ground. The street leading to Uday’s luxury house, which was closed to traffic when the Iraqi regime controlled Baghdad, was clogged with vehicles.
Around midday, a US Army unit that had been stationed overnight at Tareq Aziz’s home joked with a group of around 20 looters who feverishly waited outside to ransack the house. As soon as the Americans left, the group rushed in to grab anything that came to hand. US soldiers said the furniture inside the house had been left covered with sheets, as if the owner had been planning to return.
Gun-toting looters, meanwhile, stole two ambulances and medicine from Al-Kindi hospital, one of Baghdad’s leading civilian treatment centers. US troops called to assist said they had no orders to intervene. Two American troop transporters and a dozen men, however, have been deployed outside the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Iraqi capital.
Jubilant crowds turned out to greet them as Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed as quickly as the American armor was able to push into the heart of the city. However, despite scenes of jubilation and the toppling of Saddam’s Baath Party, Baghdad remained fraught with peril yesterday as US troops attempted to secure the Iraqi capital. Troops convoys are facing sporadic attacks from snipers and small resistance forces. Gunbattles along the Tigris River and around the presidential palace persist while Marines continue to hone-in on the city center.
“The bad guys have put their weapons down and blended in with the civilians but they still have access to those weapons, enough to pick them up again and do a lot of damage,” said Bosen’s Mate Chief William Bonham.
