BRINGING FREEDOM TO IRAQ......
'I Saw Dogs Eating the Body of a Woman'
Reuters
Monday 05 October 2004
Samarra, Iraq - Waving white flags, Iraqis have fled Samarra on river boats as US forces claimed victory over insurgents in an offensive aimed at taking control of rebel-held cities.
Iraq's US-backed interim government is hoping American and Iraqi forces will crush a bloody insurgency and take back all of the country before the scheduled January elections.
But Sunday's operation in Samarra, north of Baghdad, brought condemnation from residents about the cost in lives and suffering, and guerrillas in the fiercest rebel-held city of Fallujah are expected to put up a tougher fight.
The US strategy of "precision strikes" also came in for criticism from Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar, who described the air assaults as collective punishment.
In 36 hours of fighting in the city, the US military said it killed 125 guerrillas and captured 88. About 3 000 US troops and 2 000 Iraqi soldiers had stormed Samarra on Friday.
Aid organisations said they were concerned about a lack of water and electricity and the fate of hundreds of families forced to flee.
One man, who said he escaped the city yesterday, reported that civilians had been killed. He said he had seen dogs picking at corpses in the street. "I swear I saw dogs eating the body of a woman," he said.
Residents said bodies were left in the streets, untended due to the fear of snipers.
Families tried to bury their dead on Sunday but the road to the cemetery was blocked off by US troops, witnesses said.
Meanwhile, near Baghdad, a hospital said it had received the bodies of a man and a woman, both believed to be Westerners, found by police on Saturday.
The man had been beheaded and the woman shot in the head. They carried no identification documents.
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