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Iraqi leader condemns deaths of
civilians killed by U.S. soldiers
BAGHDAD, November 23 (PL).— Rebel Iraqi leader
Moqtada al Sadr has once again expressed his
opposition to the presence of U.S. troops whom he
accused of murdering four civilians on a bus this
Thursday.
 At
6.00am, an army patrol attacked a minibus carrying
workers to Sadr City, read a communiqué presented by
a spokesperson for the Shiite political leader and
sworn enemy of the U.S. military occupation.
Other sources confirmed the information with further
details that eight people, two of them women, were
hit by gunfire.
Sadr
City is a satellite neighborhood in the east of the
capital where members of the majority Iraqi Shiite
Muslim community live and is dangerous territory for
U.S. and government troops.
Media sources say that the patrol was carrying out a
search for a naturalized U.S. soldier of Iraqi
origin who had been kidnapped the previous week in a
neighborhood in the capital.
The
document was circulated after a military
spokesperson admitted that three U.S. soldiers had
been killed in attacks by the resistance in the
province of Al Anbar, the scene of frequent
operations against foreign troops and the national
army.
Meanwhile, information on the unexpected arrival in
Iraq of U.S. president Richard Cheney, to celebrate
Thanksgiving Day with the troops, were denied by his
office in Washington.
Although sources not from Prensa Latina confirmed
Cheney’s presence in the country, his spokesperson
Megan McGinn said that the vice president is not in
the Arab nation, nor is he considering traveling
there.
Reports on Cheney’s arrival were circulated by the
Al Iraquiya television station.
Translated by Granma International |
