U.S. WARPLANE KILLS 8 IRAQI CIVILIANS IN BASRA

Is this how we win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people by one of our warplanes firing into Iraqi civilians killing eight and wounding seven others?

Basra, Mar 29, (VOI) – Eight people were killed and seven others wounded when a Multi-National Force (MNF) warplane, later reported as American, opened fire in western Basra province on Saturday, according to eyewitnesses.

Basra - Voices of Iraq Saturday , 29 /03 /2008 Time 11:24:26

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"An MNF warplane opened fire at the al-Tak area in al-Hussein neighborhood, (8 km) western Basra, killing eight people and injuring seven others, mostly civilians," an eyewitness from al-Hussein told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

A media spokesman for the MNF, replying a question by VOI, said "the aircraft was American, not British.

"The oil-rich port city of Basra, Iraq's second largest province, lies 590 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.Earlier on Saturday eyewitnesses said an Iraqi copter was shot down by gunmen fire late on Friday in Basra.

"An Iraqi copter went down last night when Mahdi Army gunmen fired at it near the Military Hospital in northern Basra," an eyewitness told VOI.From last Monday, Basra has been the scene of fighting between Iraqi security forces and fighters from the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militias.