Doctors for Iraq – 2005-08-31 08:32:48
http://www.doctorsforiraq.org
(August 30, 2005) — Doctors for Iraq has received reports from medical staff in Al Qaim hospital, western Iraq that a field clinic in Al Karablaa village situated on the borders of Al Qaim has been bombed.
Two medical staff have been injured in the attack on the field clinic. Hospital staff and eyewitnesses report of many casualties from the military operation on Al Qaim city. Reports are coming in of at least fifty dead including some women and children.
Doctors For Iraq is trying to check and verify this information, which is proving difficult because the military attack is still ongoing.
Doctors For Iraq is deeply concerned about the medical humanitarian situation in the area. Medical staff in Al Qaim report that the electricity supply to the hospital has been cut. Doctors are unable to move inside the area because of the ongoing military operation. The manager of Al Qaim general hospital has closed the hospital temporarily because of the unsafe conditions in the area. Doctors set up a filed clinic in the village of Al Kararblaa, which has been bombed.
Doctors are finding it difficult to reach the areas under attack. Medical personal have told Doctors for Iraq that they fear many casualties are trapped under debris and rubble in the area. Eyewitness say that a missile struck a house in Al Qaim reducing the house to rubble and at least three families are buried under the rubble of the destroyed house.
This attack is the latest in a number of military operations in the west of Iraq in the last few weeks.Doctors For Iraq is calling for the immediate end to military attacks and targeting of civilians and medical staff.
Doctors for Iraq urges the military to preserve medical neutrality and protect medial units and staff against military attacks. Doctors for Iraq is urging humanitarian medical organisations to organise urgent aid to the area.
For more information e-mail:
Press.officer@doctorsforiraq.org
US: Air Strikes Kill Seven Insurgents
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Air strikes have flattened insurgent safe houses used by militants linked to al Qaeda in western Iraq, the US Marines told CNN Tuesday. The air attacks near the Syrian border killed at least seven militants, the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force said. A top operative called Abu Islam was among the dead, the force said.
Police in Baghdad reported that 56 civilians were killed in the strikes. They said police contacts in the region told them 40 civilians died in one house and 16 in another. Two children survived, they added.
A US military spokesman said he had no specifics yet on the strike. Lt. Col. Steve Boylan of the Coalition Press Information Center said: “We target only military targets and take precautions on any type of civilian casualties on all of our operations.”
CNN could not independently verify the report of civilian deaths.
The three air strikes were ordered on Husayba and Karabila, near Qaim, after tips were received, officials told CNN. Four 500-pound bombs were dropped on a house outside Husayba in the first raid at 6:20 a.m. (10:20 p.m. Monday ET), a statement said.
Two more bombs were later dropped on a house the Marines said was occupied by Abu Islam.
In the third attack, two bombs were aimed at a house in Karabila where militants sought refuge after the first strike, the statement said.
The attacks were the latest combat in continued hostilities reported in the border region. On Friday, Marine planes pounded a suspected safe house in Husayba where about 50 insurgents were said to be staying, the day after three U.S. soldiers died in a roadside bombing in the town.
US Pilot Killed
A US pilot was killed and a second was wounded when a US helicopter was hit by small-arms fire in northern Iraq, a military spokesman said. The attack on the UH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter came while it was flying over Tal Afar.
The aircraft went down, but the wounded pilot was able to get the helicopter airborne again and left the immediate area.
The number of US troops killed in the Iraq war stands at 1,878.
Violence continues in Iraq as politicians try to move forward with the constitutional process. In separate incidents Monday, gunmen assassinated the brother of the former governor of Baghdad and an official assigned to the Iraqi Elections Commission.
The killings came a day after Iraq’s constitutional committee approved a final draft of the Iraqi constitution and put it before the National Assembly, despite the rejection of Sunni Arab leaders. It will go to the Iraqi people, who will vote by October 15.
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