MISSILE FRAGMENTS COLLECTED IN IRAQ
By WAIEL FALEH, Associated Press Writer
Saturday June 23 4:41 PM ETBAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Six American and British activists opposed to U.N.
sanctions against Iraq said Saturday they had collected fragments of a
missile that reportedly killed 23 Iraqis to determine whether it was fired
by allied warplanes, as alleged by Iraq.The United States had denied dropping bombs Tuesday on a soccer field in
Tall Afar, 275 miles northwest of Baghdad. Washington said if there were
deaths in the attack, they were likely caused by Iraq's own misdirected
ground fire.``We saw a soccer field with a small crater and there were missile
fragments, clothes and children's sandals,'' said Bilal Moose Patel, a
31-year-old British member of the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness
pressure group.``The nearest large facility was a grain elevator, which is at least one
half to three-quarters of a mile away,'' he said.American activist Philip Steger, from St. Paul, Minn., said he planned to
ask the Pentagon to check on the serial numbers on the fragments.``Since we now have only initial observation, we are not prepared to draw
any conclusions,'' he told reporters.Since arriving in Baghdad on June 14, the three Britons and three Americans
have visited Basra, 340 miles south of Baghdad, and the province of Mosul,
where the attack allegedly occurred.The activists said they want to voice their support for Iraqis suffering
under 11 years of U.N. sanctions, imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.Allied aircraft patrol the skies over southern and northern Iraq, zones
established after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Shiite Muslim rebels in the
south and Kurds in the north from Saddam Hussein's forces. Iraq does not
recognize the no-fly zones and has challenged allied aircraft since December
1998.
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