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Anja Niedringhaus / AP Kholood, a 2-year-old Iraqi girl, lies in a bed Sunday in the hospital in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, Iraq. Kholood was injured by shrapnel in her back when US helicopters fired on a wedding party on May 19 in the desert near the border with Syria, killing more than 40 people. Kholood lost her parents, and four of her brothers and sisters during the attack. The Associated Press Updated: 9:49 pm ET May 23, 2004 RAMADI, Iraq - The bride arrives in a white pickup truck and is quickly ushered into a house by a group of women. Outside, men recline on brightly colored silk pillows, relaxing on the carpeted floor of a large goat-hair tent as boys dance to tribal songs.
Click Here The videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by US planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck. The US military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters. "There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. The artifacts of celebration But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent. The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car -- decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up. An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video -- which runs for several hours. APTN also traveled to Mogr el-Deeb, 250 miles west of Ramadi, the day after the attack to film what the survivors said was the wedding site. A devastated building and remnants of the tent, pots and pans could be seen, along with bits of what appeared to be the remnants of ordnance, one of which bore the marking "ATU-35," similar to those on US bombs. A water tanker truck can be seen in both the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape obtained from a cousin of the groom. The endless party The singing and dancing seems to go on forever at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and the bride Rutbah Sabah. The men later move to the porch when darkness falls, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather. men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding. As expected, women are out of sight -- but according to survivors, they danced to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular Baghdad wedding singer hired for the festivities. The organist, before and after Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ. Another tape, filmed a day later in Ramadi and obtained by APTN, showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud -- his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed. As the musicians played, young men milled about, most dressed in traditional white robes. Young men swayed in tribal dances to the monotonous tones of traditional Arabic music. Two children -- a boy and a girl -- held hands, dancing and smiling. Women are rarely filmed at such occasions, and they appear only in distant glimpses. Kimmitt said US troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria. The videotape showed no weapons, although they are common among rural Iraqis. US denies finding children Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although a "handful of women" -- perhaps four to six -- were "caught up in the engagement." "They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he told reporters Friday. However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Four days after the attack, the memories of the survivors remain painful -- as are their injuries. Haleema Shihab, 32, one of the three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her seven-month old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her 5-year-old son, Hamza, started running. They managed to run for several yards when she fell, her leg fractured. I couldn't go back," she said from her hospital bed in Ramadi. She and her stepdaughter, Iqbal -- who had caught up with her -- hid in a bomb crater. "We were bleeding from 3 am until sunrise," Shihab said. One of them kicked her to see if she was alive, she said. "I pretended I was dead so he wouldn't kill me," said Shihab. When Yousef cried, the soldier said: "'No, stop," said Shihab. Fourteen-year-old Moza, Shihab's stepdaughter, lies on another bed of the hospital room. Her relatives haven't told her yet that her mother, Sumaya, is dead. Moza was sleeping on one side of the porch next to her sisters Siham, Subha and Zohra while her mother slept on the other end. There were many others on the porch, her cousins, stepmothers and other female relatives. Four sisters When the first shell fell, Moza and her sisters, Subha, Fatima and Siham ran off together. I lost consciousness," said Moza, covering her mouth with the end of her headscarf. Her other sister, Subha, was on the upper floor of the hospital, in the same room with 2-year-Khoolood. Her small body was bandaged and a tube inserted in her side drained her liver. Only she and her older brother, Faisal, survived from their immediate family. Her parents and four sisters and brothers were all killed. In all, 27 members of Rikad Nayef's extended family died -- most of them children and women, the family said. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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