Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 17, 1991 TAG: 9102170147
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA LENGTH: Medium
Baghdad officials showed foreign reporters the damage from an air raid that took place Thursday in the western Iraqi town of Fallouja, where they said British jet-fighters demolished an apartment building and blew apart an outdoor market filled with shoppers and merchants, killing 130 civilians.
The British said they had attacked bridges in the Fallouja area but couldn't immediately say whether they were operating over the city on Thursday.
The attack came one day after U.S. jets bombed an underground shelter in Baghdad. Iraq said hundreds of civilians were killed. The allies said it was a military command center.
U.S. military officials did not comment Saturday on Iraq's claims about Fallouja, but they claimed Iraq had deliberately blown up at least one civilian building and then claimed allied bombers had hit it.
Allied warplanes also struck Baghdad on Saturday, Associated Press correspondent Salah Nasrawi reported from the Iraqi capital.
Front-line allied troops also have heard and been jolted by heavy bombardment across the border in Kuwait in recent days.
The attacks against Iraqi forces reached a peak before dawn Saturday, when U.S. Marines were rocked in their foxholes as bombs and shells landed on Iraqi positions at the rate of several per second, pool reporters said.
Early Saturday, the U.S. Command said, U.S. Army artillery, multiple-launcher rockets and helicopters attacked Iraqi forces along the border, destroying a bunker, two observation posts and six military vehicles.
During a closed U.N. Security Council meeting Saturday, Iraq's envoy suggested that if heavy, high-altitude bombing continues, Iraq would be justified in using chemical weapons, diplomats who attended the session said.
The envoy, Abdul Amir al-Anbari, said the allied bombing raids could be considered attacks by weapons of mass destruction, and thus merit a response with chemical agents, the diplomats said.
Iraq, meanwhile, fired more Scud missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel but they caused no damage or injuries.
The missiles carried conventional warheads, and one hit in southern Israel, said Brig. Gen. Nachman Shai, an Israeli army spokesman. Military censors banned publication of further information on the Israel missile attack.
Three Scud missiles reportedly have disintegrated in flight recently, which could signal a deterioration in Iraq's stockpiles of the Soviet-built rockets.
by CNB