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Gruesome deaths on highway

10 children, women killed at checkpoint as US troops fire; British soldier dead; house-to-house fight in Hindiyah

STAR DESK
The invasion of Iraq took another nasty turn yesterday when US troops fired on a car packed with civilians near Najaf and killed 10 unarmed women and children.
A few hours later, another civilian car driver was killed by the troops south of Baghdad, fuelling Arab anger. The driver in a white truck was apparently oblivious to barbed wire strew across the road.
The US troops violated their own instructions of firing early warning shots to stop any car and sprayed bullets on the speeding car with 15 women and children. Five children, all under five years, and five women died instantly. Others were also critically wounded.
A Washington Post reporter travelling with the US troops at Najaf said the warning shots were not fired and rather bullets were indiscriminately sprayed on the car.
"You just killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough," Captain Ronny Johnson, who was in charge of the checkpoint, yelled at his troops after the incident.
Civilian deaths kept on piling on the 13th day of the war. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said 56 civilians had been killed in US-
led air raids yesterday, including 24 in overnight bombings in Baghdad and five in the morning.
A BBC correspondent in Baghdad said he saw distressing pictures of mutilated bodies of a family who were killed in a missile hit in Babylon yesterday.
"This morning the villains have bombarded the Nader district in the southern part of the city. Nine Iraqi children were martyred, among them one small baby," the Iraqi information minister said.
The battle yesterday took to the streets as Iraqi forces and Anglo-
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American troops were locked in house by house fighting in Hindiyah, just 50 miles from Baghdad.
Fears of suicide bombers have made the trek north increasingly dangerous for the Anglo-Americans. Moreover, fears of attack from surrendered Iraqi troops also heightened after a prisoner of war was shot dead when he reached for the weapon of a Marine.
US also suffered some casualties at Abul Khasib near Basra. A BBC correspondent said the invaders are not "at all in control of Basra" and that they are just outside the city.
A British soldier has died while on duty in southern Iraq, British defence ministry confirmed.
US-led forces launched missiles toward Baghdad and the holy Shi'ite Muslir Karbala to the southwest. Circling warplanes bombed targets in the area.
Baghdad shuddered with missile
and bomb explosions. Smokes rose from the capital's Old Palace presidential compound.
In the town of Biwaniyah, about 80 miles southeast of Baghdad, Marines fought with hundreds of Iraqi fighters who fired from inside buildings.
Iraq meanwhile publicly denied a report that Saddam's family had fled the country.
Battle for
Nassiriyah
Iraq reported fierce fighting in and around the southern city of Nassiriyah, saying the invaders had taken heavy losses.
US Marines fought their way across the city's bridges but could not take control of the city from paramilitary fighters. Since then, Iraqi forces have carried out several ambushes in the area.
Iraqis claimed they killed at least 60 US and British troops, destroyed more than 35 vehicles and downed over five enemy aircraft.
Baghdad rattles
A dozen cruise missiles hammered the capital while the Republican Guard faced their first significant battle with coalition forces on the ground.
Intense bombardments kept pounding the outskirts of Baghdad too, where four divisions of the Republican Guard were hunkered down to defend the capital.
Missile on Kuwait
An Iraqi missile fired at Kuwait was shot down by a Kuwaiti Patriot battery yesterday.
Iraqi forces launched a missile yesterday in an area of central Iraq where US troops are fighting, but it was blown up by a US Patriot missile. No one was injured.
"It just looked like a big bag of flour exploded," said Specialist Jeffrey Backowski, 25, a driver from Tulare, California, who saw the explosion as he was checking the communications system on his Humvee.