|
The number of casualties on both sides of the warring parties mounted as the Iraq war entered its seventh day Wednesday.
Coalition Forces
Soldiers killed on the battlefield: Two US Marines were killed on the front in Iraq last Thursday and Friday respectively. On Sunday, images of the bodies of four dead US soldiers were shown on Iraqi television. The US military said 10 US Marines were killed in the fierce battle near the city of Nasiriya. Two other soldiers died Sunday night near Basra and Nasiriya. A British sergeant was shot dead on Monday morning near Basra and another British soldier died in operation near the town of Al Zubayr, 140 kilometers west of Basra.
Soldiers who died in accidents: About eight British soldiers and four US Marines died in an accident last Friday as a US CH-46E helicopter crashed near the Iraq-Kuwaiti border. On the following day, seven crew members, including six Britons and one American, were killed when two British naval helicopters collided over international waters in the Gulf. Two others lost their lives when a British Royal Air Force plane was hit early Sunday by a US Patriot missile. One soldier of the US 101st Airborne Division was killed on Sunday in a grenade assault in northern Kuwait. Two crewmembers of a British tank were killed late Monday near Basra by friendly fire from another British tank during a night battle with Iraqi forces in the outskirts of Basra.
-- Soldiers missing or captured: Two British servicemen were missing Sunday following an attack on a convoy of vehicles in Iraq; One US corporal was captured Sunday night during Iraqi resistance against US-British forces near Basra and Nasiriya.
Iraqi Forces
Although the Iraqi government has so far released no casualty figures, the US military said on Sunday that about 70 Iraqi troops were killed near Nasiriya. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said about 2,000 Iraqi prisoners of war have been taken; 150 to 500 Iraqi soldiers were killed Tuesday near Najaf by US troops advancing toward Baghdad. The Pentagon said 300 to 500 Iraqi soldiers were killed in Karbala.
Civilians
A Jordanian taxi driver was confirmed killed in the first round of raids on Baghdad last Thursday. An Iraqi official said last Friday that overnight air raid killed three civilians and injured 250 others. According to the latest reports, air raids on the southern city of Basra on Saturday evening left 50 people dead and 27 injured. Iraqi officials, however, on Sunday updated the number of civilians killed to 77 and that of injured to 366 in the air raids on Basra. Iraqi satellite TV reported that four civilians died in the raids on Tikrit.
An Australian cameraman was killed in a car bombing near a checkpoint in northern Iraq. On Sunday, Britain's main commercial TV news service ITN said its reporter Terry Lloyd was believed killed in southern Iraq, while two other members of his crew were missing.
On Sunday, five Syrian civilians were killed and 10 injured by a cruise missile in Rutba in western Iraq when they were fleeing Iraq in a bus. At least 29 Iraqis were injured Monday. Five of them were killed when their houses were hit by missiles in Al-Azamiyah of Baghdad.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Ali Sahhaf said on Monday that as many as 98 civilians were killed and 490 others injured on Sunday and Monday in air raids carried out by the US-British coalition forces.
The minister said on Tuesday that at least 15 Iraqi civilians were killed and 95 others injured Monday during US-led air strikes.
(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2003)
|
