American- British raids on Iraq kill 6 Iraqis, 15 wounded

While an Iraqi military spokesman said yesterday that 6 Iraqis were killed and 15 wounded in an American- British bombardment targeted al-Basra area to the south of Iraq, news reports stressed that the US seeks to have certain East European states host American forces in these countries after the Turkish parliament had refused a government memorandum to deploy 64,000 American troops on the Turkish lands.

The commander of the American forces in Europe, Gen. James Jones said that he had held intensive talks with NATO members in order to reduce the American forces in Western Europe and to deploy them in East Europe.

On the other hand, the representative of the World Health Organization, WHO, in Baghdad Ghulam Boubal yesterday warned that any war against Iraq will worsen the deteriorated humanitarian conditions in it and will result in creating grave health and humanitarian crises.

In a press statement he made yesterday Noubal stressed that if e war against Iraq is to take place, it will be catastrophic against the Iraqi people who are still suffering the results of the Gulf war of 1991 and the implications of the economic sanctions imposed on it since then.

He indicated that mortality death among the new deaths reached 108 per one thousand and that deaths rate among children under five year old, as a result of malnutrition reached 131 children per one thousand, while mortality rate among pregnant women reached 294 for each one thousand.

He indicated that one third of the Iraqi children are suffering malnutrition and therefore they are more vulnerable to diseases.