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Iraqis protest deadly blast
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Hundreds of Iraqi citizens protested against the United States Saturday after a large cache of Iraqi weapons seized by coalition forces exploded, destroying at least four houses and killing and wounding many residents. How and when the munitions dump came to be was in dispute, however, as U.S. military officials passed the buck to the Saddam Hussein regime while U.S. soldiers in Baghdad said they had brought the weapons to the site from all over the capital. CentCom said six Iraqis were found dead and four more were wounded, but residents of the Zafraniya neighborhood said at least 14 people were killed and another 30 wounded. The International Committee of the Red Cross said that it visited two hospitals where the wounded were taken and saw at least six people dead and more than 50 wounded. U.S. Central Command said the explosion was triggered when "an unknown number of individuals" attacked the U.S. forces guarding the dump, wounding one U.S. soldier, and fired an "unknown incendiary device" into the dump. Residents of Zafraniya said they were furious because they had previously warned U.S. troops that the ordnance dump, at a former Iraqi military base several miles southeast of the city center, posed a threat. "This building here is about 500 meters from our area and they promised us no explosion at all from the past three days," said Dr. Amar Sabah of the Yormuk Hospital, referring to the ammunition dump. "But now this morning at eight, there was a huge explosion and many people were killed and also others are injured," Sabah added. Military officials acknowledged that the cache was too close to the neighborhood to be destroyed in place but had not yet been made safe for transport -- and that the deposed Iraqi regime had put it there. "It was put there by the regime and we were guarding it," said Centcom spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens. Another CentCom official said that the military was waiting for ordnance specialists to check the dump for boobytraps and to proclaim it safe for removal. "We don't want to just pick that stuff up and move it," the official said. "We wouldn't just destroy it in a residential area," he added. "We have to be very careful, very deliberate about it. As long as it's sitting there and we're not doing anything with it, it's less harmful." But soldiers on the scene corroborated what Iraqi civilians said -- that U.S. forces had created the massive dump. The civilians told CNN that troops had brought the weaponry to Rasheed Air Base from all over Baghdad, building a dump that covered "acres" of land. After the blast, U.S. forces initially moved in to help clear the rubble from one destroyed house, its front yard replaced by a large, water-filled crater, about three meters (10 feet) deep and eight meters (25 feet) wide. One Iraqi man was pulled alive from the debris, and at least one body was recovered. An exasperated U.S. soldier standing on the rubble shouted for backup and then ordered the Iraqi residents to clear the way for a military vehicle, to help rescue the individual. "I know there's somebody alive in there," he told CNN's Nic Robertson. When asked if he was trying to remove the person, he said "I'm going to do my damnedest." The U.S. forces, as well as the CNN crew, were forced back from the area several times, after crowds of angry Iraqis became volatile, finally moving out of the area for good. One enraged resident repeatedly yelled, "Why?," shouting that women and children were among those inside the house. By Saturday afternoon, a steadily increasing group gathered in several streets outside the Palestine Hotel in downtown Baghdad, carrying signs saying, "No Bombs Between Houses." "How much blood do we have to pay with?" they shouted, pressing against a single link chain separating them from a rolling silver of barbed wire. "Saddam and Bush don't care about civilians," they said, "There's no freedom with so much military," and "No to occupation, no to America." Baghdad residents awoke to the sounds of the blasts, which began at 7 a.m. (0300 GMT) and continued, intermittently, for several hours. Robertson said that at one point, explosions were heard for 30 minutes, without interruption. "The [Palestine Hotel] shook worse than during coalition bombing," Robertson said. Shortly after arriving on the scene, Robertson reported seeing rockets going off into the sky. Soldiers said the ordnance included rocket-propelled grenades, rockets "as large as trucks" and torpedoes. A Central Command spokesman said it was investigating the incident. -- CNN Correspondents Kathleen Koch, Jim Clancy, Rula Amin and Jim Clancy contributed to this report
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