There were body parts and pools of blood on the pavements of ash-Shaab, a working class suburb of north-west Baghdad yesterday, after a US aircraft is believed to have fired two missiles into a busy shopping and residential area.Lara Marlowe hears witnesses tell of the attack on the ash-Shaab market
The explosions blackened facades and hurled broken glass, charred and twisted cars and other debris across hundreds of square metres.
Iraqi officials said there were at least 15 people killed and 30 others wounded.
I heard detailed, eyewitness accounts of 11 civilian deaths, and inhabitants of the area claimed there were 27 people killed.
A British officer in Kuwait said the "incident" would be investigated.
"We did nothing," said one Iraqi. "We are innocent, peaceful people. Why are they doing this to us?"
"What does Bush want?" asked Mr Hisham Danoon, the supervisor of an apartment building who witnessed four men cut to pieces in the air raid.
Such blunders are helping to consolidate nationalism and defiance - even among Iraqis who dislike the regime - in the face of the US-British invasion. The dead included a mechanic, a woman motorist and her three children, two restaurant workers, the owner of an electrical shop, and the neighbourhood beggar.
Angry Iraqis held the shoes and clothing of victims over their heads and shouted, "Down with Bush, Long Live Saddam". Ash-Shaab, like the southern cities where the most intense combat of the war has taken place so far, is inhabited by Shia Muslims.
Washington and London thought the Shia majority would rise up against Saddam Hussein when the war started, but this has apparently not happened, despite assertions by British officials that "some kind of unrest" was taking place in the Shia city of Basra.
US cruise missiles struck the headquarters of Iraqi television in central Baghdad early yesterday morning, putting it off the air for several hours.
Smoke could be seen from the television building, but foreign journalists were not allowed to approach it. By afternoon, the station was again broadcasting patriotic songs and images of the Iraqi leader.
The Pentagon and the US command in Qatar announced they had deliberately targeted the station "to cut off propaganda and disinformation capabilities".
However, later in an interview with the BBC, the British defence secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, said there had been "no direct attempt to take Iraqi television off the air".
The station had angered Washington by broadcasting images of dead US servicemen and showing interviews with US prisoners of war. It has also broadcast several speeches by President Saddam Hussein since the war started a week ago.
Each time, the Iraqi leader proved he was still alive by alluding to events that occurred only hours before he spoke.