Reports from the Spanish Brigadists in Baghdad: from days of attacks March 25th to 27th

Reports from the Spanish Brigadists in Baghdad: from days of attacks March 25th to 27th

March, 25th, 2003: The sixth night of attacks on Baghdad

Translation from Spanish by Donald Murphy

Baghdad/Madrid, 25 March, 2003

A day of mourning in Baghdad after a night of continuous bombing, which intensified between 4:00 and 8:30 AM local time, especially in the southern part of the city, near the airport, where attacks by fighter jets seem still to be occurring.

Yesterday, 24 March, between 11:00 and 12:00 AM local time, while the Brigade was in the market of the New Baghdad district and heard the impact of bombs coming from some distance away, the US air force was indeed sowing more death and destruction among the civilian population of Baghdad. This time it was in the residential area of Addamiyya, in broad daylight and when the streets were full of activity - people shopping for supplies in the markets and shops, taking advantage of the daytime hours to relieve the tension built up during their confinement at home or in shelters in the long, night-time hours when, for the past six nights, Baghdad has been ravaged by bombardments and explosions.

The Brigade discovered yesterday that a missile landing in this neighbourhood caused the deaths of 6 persons, as well as 23 injuries - all civilians, as this neighbourhood is one of middle-class professionals and workers and in which there are no government or military buildings, as the Brigade was able to confirm today. In other parts of the city, 13 more persons have been killed and more than 70 injured.

Funerals of grief and indignation

The Brigade went this morning to extend its sympathies to the families of the victims and to the residents of Addamiyya. As a show of support, it accompanied the funeral party of three of the six residents killed yesterday, whose coffins, draped with Iraqi flags, were carried on shoulders through the district's main streets in a massive procession, characteristically sombre and traditional. Choked with grief and indignation, the residents of Addamiyya - men, women and children - sang patriotic songs as they accompanied the procession to the three vehicles waiting to take their loved ones to the cemetery. The feelings of consternation, grief and collective indignation could be seen on the faces of everyone, in the quiet weeping of the some of the women, in the exclamations of those who, leaning over their balconies with raised fists, shouted nationalist slogans as the procession passed by.

In Raghiba Jatum street, in Addamiyya, the Brigade saw the mountain of rubble produced by the missile that yesterday completely demolished one house and ripped the walls off three more. As yesterday, scattered about among the ruins of this house was the intimate testimony of those who lived there, in the form of household objects and personal possessions: family photos, a Koran, books and school binders - whole lives destroyed by a single missile blast.

Among the people contemplating the disaster with indignation and sadness, Dr. Husan, resident of the neighbourhood, professor of art, painter and Spanish speaker, transmitted the general feeling of the local population to the Brigade: "I can't understand why President Aznar is supporting this brutal aggression against our country and against our people. Look around you - the people who live in this neighbourhood are middle-class workers. This is an outrage."

But here there is no gesture of bad faith toward the Brigade, no resentment despite the fact that everyone in Iraq knows the Spanish government is an accomplice to this aggression and slaughter. As on previous days, the citizens are able to distinguish friend from foe perfectly and appreciate the testimony of solidarity which the presence of the Brigade signifies, while they reject absolutely the posture of the Aznar Government, one especially puzzling to them as it comes precisely from a country which in the collective Arab mind represents the splendour of their own historic past. Shows of affection, among today's devastation, from a people whose morale is still intact, in spite of everything, and whose pride has been bolstered by their own sense of what is right in face of the US-led barbarity.

The US continues to attack civilian neighbourhoods

At Nuaman Hospital, the Brigade was able to speak to some of the people, all of them civilians, injured yesterday: Suhat, a beautiful girl of seven years old, with multiple injuries all over her body, lay smiling beside her 11-year-old brother, Ali, who was unconscious, his neck bandaged; another of her brothers was in surgery.

The Brigade also visited the victims of the US bombing attacks carried out Monday night in the Sha'ab district, another residential neighbourhood of Baghdad. During this visit, intermittent bomb impacts were felt, one such explosion in a nearby area causing the windows of the Hospital to vibrate.

Terrorizing the population

The fact that the bombardment is being carried out day and night, in densely populated areas, in residential areas of all types and social classes, confirms that the US, far from attacking military and government installations, is clearly determined to terrorize the civilian population in order to lower its spirit and its determination to resist the invasion of its country. The whine of US fighter jets crossing the skies over Baghdad, the constant hum of the bombers, penetrate deeply into the collective psyche in a tactic planned by the aggressors to maintain a sustained pressure on the population. The continuous sound of aircraft creates a permanent anxiety among the people, as it is impossible to know each time a plane goes over if it will bring with it a missile or bomb attack.

Today Baghdad lies under a dome of smoke - from the bombing and from the oil-filled ditches which burn throughout the city - and dust, stirred into the air by an intense sandstorm. It's cold and very windy. It's raining mud. In the heart of it, the people go on with their lives, which however damaged are not interrupted. This people, hardened by 12 years of enduring extreme conditions on a daily basis, retain a high morale and their pride intact even when faced with the horrors of war. Civilians, militia and soldiers continue digging trenches and tunnels to resist what they know will be a bloody battle when the US and UK troops reach the city and hand-to-hand combat ensues. The defence of Baghdad and a people's resistance is a collective banner emanating from the popular consciousness. It is unthinkable that, under the harsh conditions and the aggression that Iraq is living through, the spirit of sacrifice and dignity which motivates these people will be coerced by pressure, or by the dictates of any authority. Iraq - invaded, bombed by foreign troops - is a nation under siege, but united in its determination to resist.

26th March, 2003: The seventh day of the attacks

Baghdad/Madrid, 26th, March, 2003 The US is intensifying its strategy of terrorizing the civilian population of Iraq. Thirteen civilians dead and dozens injured are the latest known victims in Baghdad of the "precise" and "surgical" attacks launched this morning, in broad daylight (between 11:00 and 11:30 AM local time) in the residential area of Sa'ab, on Baghdad's northern periphery, to which the Brigade travelled upon receiving news of the attack. This neighbourhood, which was bombed two days ago by US warplanes, resulting in injuries, was today the target of two missiles launched against the great two-direction, multi-lane motorway which connects Iraq's capital with the cities of Kirkut and Mosul in the north, one of the country's busiest interior routes. All circulation along the motorway has been cut off. Attack against civilian facilities The impact caused by the two US missiles left two deep craters spanning 200 metres in diameter, the width of the motorway itself. Although the missiles did not impact directly on any of the buildings which line both sides of the motorway, the shock wave unleashed an enormous explosion and a ball of fire which scorched the houses and businesses along the motorway, in an area which forms the neighbourhood's urban nucleus, as well as more than twenty cars parked along its sides. Some vehicles were blown through the air into the adjoining streets.

Coupled with the mud and brownish rain which was falling over Baghdad at the time, "the image of destroyed houses and people trembling in horror among the ruins on each side of the motorway was at once dreadful and Dantesque".

On the right side, to the north, the ground-floor garage of one building was engulfed completely in flames; opposite this, on the left, the walls of houses and businesses had caved in, their windows torn from their casings, their doors transformed into smouldering masses of scorched iron. In addition, burst water-pipes caused heavy flooding to the damaged structures.

The extent of the damage caused by the US attack, along with the news of the first thirteen casualties to be found among the rubble and the dozens of injuries reported, overwhelmed all of the Brigade members; even more so when they were shown a small box containing part of the brain of one of this new aggression's victims.

Abdala Attay, owner of one of the dwellings most damaged in the attack, showed to the Brigade the house he had lived in until today with the five members of his family, among them children, whose whereabouts are still unknown. The façade facing the motorway was completely destroyed and the other walls were doubled by the shock wave. The water-pipes burst as well, flooding the house and destroying furniture, clothes and household items. One car flew literally from the street in front of the house into the one behind it when one of the missiles hit.

Ahmad, resident of the Sa'ab district, told the Brigade that there are no military or administrative buildings in the area, as the Brigade itself would later confirm. With indignation and fear, Ahmad commented: "yesterday Bush said again in a speech that the bombing was directed at precise objectives. Here is his "precise" objective. This is the democracy that Bush wants to bring us".

Night-time bombing of Iraqi TV Last night, the Brigade heard from within its shelter the loud explosions of three missiles that fell in the vicinity of the surrounding neighbourhood. This morning it found that the US attack had targeted the building which houses Iraqi Television, located on the right bank of the Tigris River in a heavily developed area populated by civilians. Broadcasting was interrupted, but re-established during the night. The Brigade was able to see first-hand that the three US missiles, along from the severe damage done to the Television building, had also completely destroyed another building situated across the river, next to the Al Ahdar bridge, where the administrative offices of the National Electric Company are located.

The Brigade reiterates in its report for today that the presence of US warplanes and fighter jets flying over the city is being maintained continuously and constitutes a tactic for creating alarm and permanent anxiety among civilians in order to terrorize them. Missile and bomb attacks are carried out intermittently day and night, regardless of the hour. Today, as every day and from the first hour of daylight on, explosions could be heard coming from various parts of the city. The bombing raids are not carried out only at night but may surprise the citizens of Baghdad at any moment, in broad daylight and in any place. This morning, when the Brigade was in the Bab Ma'adam district and speaking to some of the residents as they went about their shopping, explosions were suddenly heard nearby, causing immediate alarm among the people in and around the market, interrupting again the already altered rhythm of daily life which, despite the invasion and the bombs, for the people of Iraq must go o

27th, March, 2003: The eighth day of the aggression:

Translation from Spanish by Donald Murphy

Baghdad/Madrid, 27 March, 2003

Yesterday, after a brutal US missile attack in the Sa'ab district that left 16 people dead and dozens injured, US air forces continued bombing intermittently on the outskirts of the city until 20:00, when the attacks intensified. At 1:00 AM, US fighters were again heard flying over the city, along with bomb exploding in parts of the city centre. At 2:30 AM, the Brigade once more heard B-52 super-bombers flying overhead, launching extremely intense attacks on the surrounding areas which went on until 4:30 AM.

The attacks kept up until dawn throughout all of Baghdad. Explosions have continued to be heard this morning on the outskirts of the city, probably in the areas close to the airport.

Donations of blood The Brigade went this morning to the National Blood Bank, where all of the members, and some of the journalists who accompanied them, donated blood. The Iraqi health workers who attended them treated them with great attention and professionalism and said that at the present time there was no shortage in their reserves of blood; the population of Baghdad have responded very positively to their call for donations and so they are able to deal with the necessities posed by war injuries. They indicated, however, that they face serious problems in carrying out blood tests due to the poor state of their equipment, due to the embargo, and that they are especially lacking in some of the chemical agents required to carry out such tests efficiently. The staff also informed them that they attend exclusively to the needs of the city's forty hospitals and public medical centres, from which military personnel are excluded.

Sa'ab: a new stage of horror The Brigade went again to Sa'ab, the neighbourhood which was attacked yesterday. In response to speculations that these impacts might have been caused by anti-aircraft guns, the Brigade points out that the two enormous craters left in the motorway that ran through the neighbourhood, as well as the shock wave the explosions generated, could only have been produced by the destructive force of missiles. No one in the neighbourhood has any doubt of this. Although the sandstorm and the rain have stopped, the area most affected still presents a terrifying spectacle: the people are tremendously shaken by the event but even so a multitude of neighbours - men, women and children - can be seen scrambling through the debris, beginning the daunting task of clearing it away. Some of those slightly injured in the blast, with bandages on various parts of their bodies, relate their experiences to the Brigade.

They met one woman whose house was among the most damaged, a woman as humble and simple as the Sa'ab district itself, who cried aloud, "Why? Why?" as she was shown the destruction the aggression had caused to her own house.

They also spoke with a young university student of Technological Engineering who was armed with a Kalishnikiov, only one of the thousands of civilian who have taken up arms to fortify the ranks of resistance in Baghdad, together with the soldiers and militia, and who confirmed for them what they have been seeing for some days now wherever they have gone - in the streets, in the markets, in the taxis: that the population is prepared to fight.

The Brigade is impressed by the toughness of these people - men, women, and young people who display the same spirit of firmness and pride in the face of the foreign aggression which was exemplified once again today, among indignation and controlled rage, in the barbaric scene caused by the cowardly attack by the cold might of US military technology on a district of innocent civilians.

A population determined to resist Everyone is aware that a very difficult battle will take place in Baghdad, but says they will fight to the bitter end. The fact, as the news agencies report, that the massive flight of Iraqi citizens out of the country they previously predicted and for which they have been preparing for weeks in advance has not occurred, confirms that the determination of the Iraqi population is to stay where they are and resist the aggression. As of yesterday afternoon, according to ACNUR and Cáritas, the refugee camps established on the country's borders with Jordan, Turkey and Syria have reported only 400 persons coming from Iraq, but of nationalities other than Iraqi. To affirm, as some media sources have done in recent days, that Iraqis are not leaving the country because the regime does not permit them to is to deny the truth and, even more, to ignore and detract from the valour of the Iraqi population, to dishonour their courage and conceal their spirit of sacrifice: popular resistance is not something that can be ordered by an authority, much less when it is the government itself which is arming the civilian population.

Military preparations are being stepped up especially on the outskirts of Baghdad, where more troop movements by the army can be observed. In the centre, the work of digging trenches goes on, but calm and serenity prevail.

(As every day, the representatives of the Spanish press who share its lodgings - correspondents for La Vanguardia, El País, ABC, RNE, Colpisa and Cope, as well as the team from ETB- with the Brigadists, have been invited to participate in the activities the Brigade plans for everyday. As well as the Brigade members, these correspondents have been able to testify first-hand to the facts contained in these reports).

Baghdad, capital of sacrifice, capital of dignity

Comité de Solidaridad con la Causa Árabe - Arab Cause Solidarity Committee
Carretas 33 2º F-G, Madrid, 28012 - Tlf./Fax : 91.531.75.99 / E-Mail : csca@nodo50.org
http://www.nodo50.org/csca