Baghdad: 25 Marines Dead, Hurt; Corpses In Streets; City In Chaos

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=3165525&startrow=1&date=2003-04-11&do_alert=0

Russian Information Agency (Novosti)
April 11, 2003

3 U.S. MARINES DEAD, 22 WOUNDED BY IRAQI SUICIDE
BOMBER

-"I don't like Bush, but I obey orders."


MADRID, April 11, 2003. /From RIA Novosti
correspondent Juan Cobo/--3 US marines died and 22
were wounded when an Iraqi suicide bomber blew himself
up in central Baghdad on Thursday evening, Olga
Rodriguez of Spain's most popular radio channel Cadena
Ser cited the US military as saying.

The mighty explosion went off in front of the Hotel
Palestine, which accommodates about 200 reporters from
different countries. The suicide bomber had stepped
out of a taxi at a checkpoint crowded with US soldiers
and set off his bomb.

The Spanish reporter said there were clashes and
sounds of salvoes and bursts of gunfire in the south
and north of the Iraqi capital. The streets were
littered with corpses of men and women, she said.

Rodriguez reported also that the US military had
advised reporters to stay in the hotel because they
could not guarantee their safety in a city where
"liberated pillagers exulted in robbing stores and
public institutions," as she put it. She added that
Baghdad was in chaos as the population grew
increasingly critical of the US troops, who were
unable to establish law and order.

The reporter said that the US officer who had
recommended her to stay indoors had said, "I don't
like Bush, but I obey orders."