50 civilians dead, says Arab TV

Massacre claim

About 50 Iraqi civilians were killed in coalition bombing of the southern city of Basra, the independent Arab-language satellite station Al-Jazeera claimed last night.

In footage seen across the Arab world, the station aired grisly and explicit images of the dead and wounded, including a child with the back of its skull blown off and blood-stained people being treated on the floor of a hospital.

"It's a huge mass of civilians," said one woman angrily as she stood among the casualties. "It was a massacre."

The station's report had yet to be verified last night, although US and British forces have been in fierce battles surrounding the city, the second largest in Iraq.

Coalition forces had apparently avoided a full-scale assault on the city, but were involved in street-by-street fighting in Basra's suburbs.

There were conflicting reports over who controlled the city and no independent confirmation that the city had been bombed.

Al-Jazeera, formed in 1996 by a group of Arab journalists and funded by wealthy Qataris, is now regarded as the region's most influential broadcaster. The station quoted hospital officials in Basra as saying that a total of 50 people were killed – including one entire family and a Russian citizen – when US F-16 warplanes planes bombed the city.

Images of wounded men, women and children lying bleeding in the seemingly poorly equipped Jumhuriya hospital and what appeared to be bodies wrapped in blankets, were beamed into the homes of millions of viewers, many of whom are already angry at the war on fellow Arabs.

Asked whether US-led forces had bombed Basra, a military spokesman at the Allied headquarters in Qatar declined comment.

"That is considered an ongoing operation and until it is over we're not going to go out there one way or another on that," he said.