Joint US-British air raids around Baghdad killed two Iraqis and left more than 20 others wounded, some in critical condition, including children, said reports.
The victims were identified as Ghaidah Abdallah, 18, and Khalil Hamid Alwash, said AFP, adding that both succumbed to their injuries in hospital.
"More than 20 citizens are still in hospital being treated for wounds received in the raids," a health official told the agency.
"The injured are women, children and old people, some are critical cases," Health minister, Umaid Mehdat Mubarak, said late Friday.
Footage from Al-Yarmuk hospital showed several children, women and men bleeding from leg and stomach wounds.
The Pentagon said 24 US and British aircraft bombed five command and control centers to stem an increased threat from Iraqi air defenses to US aircraft patrolling a southern "no-fly" zone.
The raid was the first in more than two years by US and British warplanes on the Baghdad area and the biggest single air strike since Operation Desert Fox, a four-day bombing campaign in December 1998.
President Saddam Hussein chaired an emergency meeting of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council and the leadership of the Baath party and vowed not to bow to "the criminal American aggression against Iraq," a statement said, quoted by AFP.
"The aggression will not force Iraq to give up its rights," said the statement which blamed the strikes on a "Zionist and American plot."
"Iraq will continue to fight them (enemies) on land, in the air and at sea. Iraq will finally win."
US President George W Bush, speaking in Mexico on Friday, said the operation was a routine mission to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.
"Saddam Hussein has got to understand that we expect him to conform to the agreement that he signed after Desert Storm," he told reporters.
A US general told the BBC that the attack was intended to protect American planes that routinely patrol the air exclusion zones in northern and southern Iraq.
"We think we've accomplished what we were looking for in this sense - to degrade, disrupt the ability of the Iraqi air defenses to coordinate attacks against our aircraft," said US General Gregory Newbold.
Iraq's official newspapers vowed Saturday that Baghdad would avenge the US and British air strikes.
"This new crime will not go without dissuasive punishment for the American aggressors," warned the armed forces' newspaper, Al-Qadissiya, quoted by AFP.
It said Baghdad was determined to teach US President George W. Bush, "son of the viper (former president) George Bush, a lesson which he will never forget."
By ordering Friday's raids, the US leader, whose father was in office during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait, had "shown his hatred for Iraq and its historic leadership," the paper charged.
Another official daily, Al-Jumhuriya, said "the latest aggression on Baghdad was a continuation of the attacks on our people and towns in northern and southern Iraq," referring to the no-fly zones.
It amounted to "a new failure for the tyrants of criminal America with its new administration and vile mentality," the paper said.
Meanwhile, a former Nato deputy commander has warned that the air strikes on targets near Baghdad will make Britain deeply unpopular in the Middle East and could cause economic damage, according to the BBC.online.
General Sir John Akehurst said Britain and the US would find it difficult to justify the intervention on the grounds of retaliating to Iraqi threats.
He told the BBC that "it seems to me to be a serious public relations blunder because it will stimulate great antipathy throughout the Middle East.
"I'm sorry that Britain, which was not all that unpopular and very popular in some countries, should be associated with this and I think it may do serious economic damage."
TEHRAN CONDEMNS US ‘ADVENTURISM’ IN IRAQ
Radio Tehran on Saturday denounced the US bombing of Baghdad as "signs of adventurism" by the new US president, said AFP.
"The violent attacks of the American air force are signs of the adventurism of the new administration of George W. Bush," the radio said in a commentary.
"Bush is seeking to demonstrate his strength against (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein."
"This surprise attack adds to the growing violence in the Middle East," it added, in reference to Israel and the Palestinians.
A Jordanian newspaper also strongly denounced the "cowardly" US-British bombing raids on Iraq, said the agency.
"As the despicable embargo on Iraq began to fall apart gradually ... the air raids launched yesterday by the United States against southern Iraq show Washington's determination to carry on with its policy of aggression," Al- Dustour newspaper wrote in a front-page editorial.
"We consider this new American aggression as an attempt by some members of the administration of US President George Bush to settle accounts," the newspaper said.
Al-Aswaq daily gave front-page coverage to the raids by publishing agency dispatches from Baghdad and Washington as well as pictures of children wounded in the attack.
"Bush begins dealing with the Middle East by shelling Baghdad. A message addressed to all the countries in the region that the new US administration is different from the administration of (former president Bill) Clinton," AFP quoted Al Aswaq as saying.
Editor-in-chief of the widely circulated London-based Al Quds Al Arabi, Abdul Bari Atwan told CNN on Friday that the raids will add more to the increasing anti-US sentiments in the Arab world and particularly give excuse to Islamist radicals to plan attacks American targets.
"Someone like bin Laden will be laughing right over the air strikes against Iraq," the prominent journalist said, adding that the strikes will undoubtedly cause a shock in the Arab world, already frustrated by the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.
Commenting on US and Britain's claim that the attacks were launched as self-defense, Atawan said "it's a joke."
RUSSIA, CHINA CONDEMN RAIDS ON IRAQ
Russia condemned the joint US-British air raids in Iraq, with a top defense ministry official accusing the new US administration of George W. Bush of ignoring international humanitarian norms, said AFP.
"What the American military is in the process of doing, at the beginning of the new US administration, is a threat to international security and the entire international community," General Leonid Ivashov told Interfax, cited by AFP.
"This attack leaves Russia in no doubt" that Washington was seeking to "monopolize the role of being a world policeman," the ITAR-TASS news agency cited him as saying.
Ivashov said the United States was "trying to replace the UN Security Council, which constitutes a dangerous tendency that will destabilize an already fragile international situation."
The Washington Post said that China in an official statement condemned the attack, and called for “another peaceful way to dissolve the decade-long dispute.”
Canada said it was not given advance warning but fully supported the strikes, said reports, while France said that it was not told in advance of US and British plans to launch air attacks on Iraqi radar and command posts north of the 33rd parallel.
"We were neither told nor consulted on these raids," the spokesman told AFP.
"The air strikes that were conducted tonight by US and British warplanes on the outskirts of Baghdad require examination," he added. "We are waiting for explanations from the American administration."
A Polish official, meanwhile, said that the US and British air raids against Iraq were understandable and a firm gesture by the new American administration.
Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek's political adviser Jerzy Marek Nowakowski, said that "there is no reason not to take in this action with understanding."
"Faced with a deep crisis in Israel, the Americans want to say that they are present in the Middle East. It is also a message for their Russian partners, meaning that the US is now opting for greater firmness," the adviser said - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
