Civilians bear brunt of bloody start to Iraq's Eid

source almanartv

12/10/2007 Iraqi women and children bore the brunt Friday of a bloody start to Eid al-Fitr as the US occupation military admitted to killing 15 in an air raid and a sinister suicide attack on kids shocked a "Nineteen suspected insurgents and 15 women and children were killed in an operation Thursday in the Lake Tharthar region", northwest of Baghdad, a US military spokesman said in a rare admission of civilian deaths. Further north in Tuz, a suicide bomber exploded a cart of sweets on a crowded playground on Friday, killing a child, a father and wounding 20 children. The post-Ramadan celebrations in the capital had already been marred by a suicide bomber who drove his car into an Internet cafe full of young men hours after they began. At least eight people were killed and 25 were wounded. According to the latest UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) report into human rights abuses in Iraq, released on Thursday, 88 civilians were killed in air strikes by the US occupation military in the three months between April and June. The report criticized the US military for not making public its findings into inquiries into incidents in which civilians are killed. According to the Iraqi Body Count website, which keeps an independent tally of Iraqi deaths, between 74,312 and 80,954 civilians have been killed since the US-led invasion of 2003.