About 500 Iraqis have been killed in the last two days by US Army infantry tanks and mechanised units as they swept through southern Iraq, a US commander said today.
Command Sgt Maj Kenneth Preston, who oversees the 3rd Infantry Division, said US forces ran into "a lot" of Iraqi tanks and anti-aircraft weaponry and "thousands and thousands" of weapons around the city of Najaf.
"This could have been very ugly, but they are not very motivated," Sgt Maj Preston said of the regular Iraqi army recruits. "I think a lot of them wanted to go home".
Many of the Iraqis appeared to have very low morale, he reported, adding that family members were seen picking up dead soldiers and taking them home for burial.
US troops were stopping civilian vehicles and interrogating people, he added.
At least 30 Iraqis who may have been on their way to reinforce the city of Nassiriya were killed today in what appeared to be a bombing raid by US-led forces, a Reuters correspondent said.
He said that he counted 20 dismembered bodies by a wrecked bus about 12 miles north of the key riverside city in southern Iraq and at least 10 more fresh corpses in the wreckage of another bus, two trucks and two cars.
All seemed to be men and the all the vehicles were facing in the direction of Nassiriya.
Elsewhere, sixteen civilians have been killed and another 95 wounded in allied bombing of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities overnight, the Iraqi Information Minister said today.
AP