Dozens die in US arms dump attack

CHAOS and carnage again gripped the streets of Baghdad last night after a US weapons dump was blown up, killing as many as 40 civilians.

Flares were said to have been fired into the weapons store by unknown attackers, setting off an explosion which showered the area with ordnance and reducing many homes to rubble. At least 12 people were killed in the blast but one Iraqi doctor claimed there had been 40 fatalities with many of the dead buried in the wreckage of their homes.

Some residents, furious at the proximity of the arms dump to houses, fired on US troops trying to treat the injured. A number of American soldiers were wounded in the chaos in Zaafaraniya, a suburb on the southern edge of the Iraqi capital, and US forces had to retreat.

Troops from the 3rd Infantry Division were guarding the cache of seized Iraqi munitions, when they came under attack early yesterday morning. They said "hostile forces" fired four flares over the walls of the dump, in a large field, setting off a chain of explosions at about 8am local time (5am BST).

Rockets - including surface-to-air missiles - and small arms ammunition were ignited in vast quantities, spreading shrapnel across a wide area. Sporadic blasts were still being heard seven hours later.

Resident Tamir Kalaal said 14 of his relatives, including his father, brother and wife, were killed when a rocket destroyed his home. "I am the only one that survived. All I have left is her," he said, sobbing and pointing to his one-month-old daughter. "Those Americans did this." he said, shaking his finger in anger.

Near the scene, US Army Sergeant-Major Gary Coker said many people were trapped in buildings. Tractors were digging through the rubble of homes in the district of mostly two-storey sand-coloured cement houses, in search of survivors. "We dug out six people who died, with our own hands," Nassir Abdelrahman said as hundreds of people gathered around the destroyed houses.

Another man who was hurt said five people, four women and a child, were killed in the house next door. "There was a huge explosion next to our house. Fires started all around. Explosions ripped through the neighbourhood," said the injured man, who gave his name only as Mohammed. "In the next house, four women and a child were burned to death."

Another man at the scene vented his fury at the US forces who took the capital two weeks ago: "Why, why?...The war is finished. A baby, a woman, 14 under this building," he screamed in English.

The main hospital in southern Baghdad confirmed at least 12 people had died, while the US would only say that "at least six" had been killed.

Asked how many people were dead, a local doctor in an ambulance ferrying casualties to hospital said: "Forty."

Iraqis criticised US troops for storing munitions in a residential area, but the Army said it inherited the site from the Iraqis and had been trying to move weapons away from homes.

US Army spokesman Kevin Braam said the dump stored both Iraqi and US ammunition but added: "That was not us that caused the explosions. That was not our doing. I don’t know if it was a civilian upset at us or if a militia may have caused it, but we’re not the ones."

About 500 Iraqi men, chanting anti-American, pro-Islam slogans, drove in a convoy of trucks, buses and cars out of the suburb, the first truck carrying six coffins, apparently containing bodies. "No Americans or Saddam. Yes, Yes to Islam!" the men chanted in Arabic, some of them flying green Islamic flags and banners. Among the slogans were two in English: "Stop Explosions Near Civilians" and "The Terror After War".

The blasts also sparked an angry demonstration in central Baghdad where protesters carried banners reading "No bombs between houses, yes, yes to freedom" and "US forces kill innocents with Saddam’s weapons in Zaafaraniya".

The apparent attack on the dump heightened wariness among US troops already worried about guerrilla and terrorist strikes during their occupation of Baghdad following the ousting of Saddam Hussein. Across the whole country, the security situation remained unclear last night.

Shi’ite Muslim clerics are running the holy city of Najaf without consulting US-led forces camped outside, a spokesman for the leader of one Shi’ite group said. But US troops on the outskirts of the southern Shi’ite city said they were in consultations with a retired Iraqi colonel who had been appointed mayor and was presiding over a council of elders.

In a bid to defuse post-war tensions, the US wants to introduce a United Nations resolution next week that would lift sanctions against Iraq.

American diplomats said the resolution would also authorise the phasing-out of the UN oil-for-food humanitarian programme, which would end UN control over Iraq’s oil revenue. The UN Security Council has already started wrestling with the future of sanctions, weapons inspections and Iraqi oil sales, issues over which members are deeply divided. It faces a June 3 deadline, when the current six-month phase of the oil-for-food programme ends.

Aides said Bush will declare an end to hostilities this week and hail the success of combat operations when he greets US Marines and sailors returning from the conflict on Thursday, aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.