Iraqi ambulances targeted by US snipers

Tues Sept 14th

US snipers have killed at least 11 people in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, while air strikes on nearby Falluja have left 18 people dead.

Dr Khamis al-Saad, general director of Ramadi hospital, told Aljazeera that 11 people, including a woman and children, were killed and another 18 wounded under US fire on Monday.

Ambulances and medical teams were targeted by US snipers in different areas of Ramadi, particularly near hospitals for women and children, al-Saad said.


Two ambulance drivers and members of medical teams on board the vehicles were also killed, he said.



Targeted



Medical staff and patients inside the hospitals were targeted and a number of them were shot in the head, the general director said.




US air strikes have flattened
Falluja neighbourhoods


"Situation in general is unstable and deteriorating so I call on the government and NGOs to intervene as clashes are occurring every day," al-Saad said.



"Our medical institutions are receiving casualties but medical supplies are not enough," he said.


Earlier in the day, US forces launched air strikes on Falluja, killing up to 18 people, including women, children and an ambulance driver.


Up to 29 others were injured in the strikes which began at 0100 GMT on different parts of the city, just west of Baghdad.

Missile

Seven people, including the driver of an ambulance, were killed when US aircraft fired a missile at the vehicle while it was transporting casualties near the northern gate of the city.

"Every time we send out an ambulance, it gets targeted," Dr Rafia al-Isawi, director of Falluja hospital, told Aljazeera.

"Shame on our government that cannot protect the people"

Rafia al-Isawi,
director, Falluja hospital

"How are we going to transfer casualties? This is unreasonable. The US army has no ethics.

"Shame on our government that cannot protect the people," he added.

Three homes were destroyed in al-Shurta neighbourhood, according to the doctor. "Women and men have died," he said.

Witnesses said US warplanes swooped low over the city and some of the shelling appeared to be coming from American artillery units deployed on Falluja's outskirts.

Market place blast

One explosion went off in a market place as the first stall owners had just begun to set up, wounding several people and shattering windows, witnesses said.


A Falluja doctor says ambulances
are routinely targeted


Others saw black columns of smoke rising over Falluja and said hundreds of families had begun leaving the town which is largely under the control of those fighting US forces and the American-backed interim Iraqi government.

An Iraqi journalist told Aljazeera that fierce clashes had also erupted near the city's northern gate.

Several US army tanks have been stationed at the gate. The southern gate of the town has been closed.

Rising toll

The journalist said casualty figures were expected to rise as the clashes showed no sign of abating.

US tanks were also bombing homes in al-Jughaivi neighbourhood near the northern gate.


US tanks are stationed outside
Falluja's northern gate


The latest attacks follow a day of fierce clashes between Iraqi armed fighters and US troops across the country.

Elsewhere, one person was killed and three others wounded in a US helicopter strike on a Baghdad commercial district, not far from the scene of heavy fighting between US troops and armed fighters a day earlier, witnesses said.

A US helicopter fired a missile on the area early on Monday afternoon, destroying a boarded-up clothes shop, said Ahmad Karim, who was wounded in the neck.

A dead man was sprawled in the street, his stomach ripped to shreds by shrapnel, while a child was wounded in the leg and an Egyptian worker hit in the face.

Earlier, US troops patrolled nearby Haifa Street, where up to 40 people were killed and scores more wounded in clashes between armed fighters and US soldiers the day before.

On Sunday, at least 110 people were killed in various parts of the country in an escalation of gun battles, car bombs and bombardments.

above info from Aljazeera

commentary;

What can Americans do?

We feel helpless as we watch pResident GW Bush continue to attack Iraqi civilians in the so called "war on terror" while everyday people struggle to get enough money for food and shelter. Billionaires like Cheney, Hurwitz (Maxxam CEO), Rockefeller, Bush, Kerry, etc continue to promise false hope for working people and students, as homelessness, prison incarcerations and environmental destruction worsens here at home and elsewhere. The militarized Mexican border cannot keep out illegal drugs like meth while a few miles south of the border maquiladora sweatshops dump toxins into dry riverbeds and young Mexican women workers are found murdered. All this miles of barbed wire fence to keep people out? Could we compare the US Mexico fence to the Israeli fence preventing Palestinians from reaching their olive trees?

Is petroleum dependency the only reason the US military is still in Iraq killing people or are there other motivations related to Israel? Since US and Israel are both nuclear superpowers, could we compare the similarities of apartheid practiced by both the US and Israeli government, the fence is only the most obvious similarity?

Racism in US is obvious by the staggering amount of people of color in US prisons, and also the neighborhoods on inner cities like Fresno, Hunters Point, Sacto, Houston, etc that have mostly people of color/low income Europeans living there breathing smog and chemically contaminated air..

Israel forces Palestinians behind the apartheid wall, bulldozes their homes, uproots their olive trees and then blames terrorists for defending themselves. Each terrorist attack in Israel boosts their nuclear weapons militarization, usually paralleled by the US military weapons industry (Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrupp-Grumann, etc.)..

People of color die here in prison, Muslim Palestinians die there behind the apartheid wall, Mexican maquiladora workers die behind the US/Mex border, forests are decimated by timber barons like Hurwitz, dams slowly strangle salmon, the life food of indigenous North Americans, and the media kepps telling lies, Americans stay apathetic..

The common ground of survival and desire for peace and justice may unite everyone against the corporate controlled government that is causing these and countless other problems. We need clean air, water, forests for everyone in a world free of racism, classism and other forms of oppression. This will not happen under either Bush or Kerry, it is up to all of us regular everyday people to act..