Chilling images 'breach Geneva Convention'

Chilling pictures of dead and captured US soldiers in Iraq were shown last night on the Arab satellite television channel Al-Jazeera, as Richard Myers, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the war in Iraq was "going to get a lot harder".

Al-Jazeera broadcast Iraqi footage of at least 10 bodies in three different locations, one a makeshift morgue. There, two US soldiers had been shot in the head in what appeared to be summary executions.

The Qatar-based station also transmitted interviews by an Iraqi television presenter with five prisoners, triggering protests from Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, that the pictures were in breach of the Geneva Convention clauses governing treatment of prisoners of war.

In one sequence, a smiling man in civilian clothing, presumably Iraqi, was shown turning the head of one body towards the camera. In another a dead soldier was shown lying on a road with his gear and still wearing a helmet. There appeared to be bloodstains on a vehicle near the body.

The station said the prisoners had been captured near Nasiriyah, a crossing point over the Euphrates north-west of Basra. Last night, a US military spokesman said Iraqi troops who appeared to be surrendering had ambushed a convoy and 12 American soldiers were missing.

The only prisoners to identify their unit on the broadcast were a man and a woman, who both looked fearful and anxious. They said they were from the 507th Maintenance, a company based in Fort Bliss, Texas, and part of the 11th Air Defence Artillery Brigade. The man identified himself as Sergeant James Riley, from New Jersey, and the woman gave a name that sounded like Shawna.

A young soldier in wire-rimmed spectacles identified himself as First Class Private Miller from Kansas: "I was told to come here. I just follow orders." He added: "I came to fix broke stuff." Asked if he had come to shoot Iraqis, he said: "I am told to shoot only if I'm shot at. They shot at me first so I shot back. I don't want to kill anybody. They don't bother me ­ I don't bother them."

Another soldier, who said he was Specialist Joseph Hudson from El Paso, Texas, was bewildered as inaudible questions were put to him amid a hubbub of other voices. "I don't understand ... I can't hear you ... I'm sorry," he said.

Another prisoner from Texas who gave his name as Edgar was lying on an embroidered maroon mat until the interviewer supported his head and he sat up unsteadily.

Interviewed soon after the broadcast, Mr Rumsfeld said: "We know that the Geneva Conventions make it illegal for prisoners of war to be shown, pictured, and humiliated. This is something the US does not do." In an apparent reference to Al-Jazeera, he said the network broadcasting such pictures was "doing something that is unfortunate".

At a news conference at the US Central Command in Qatar last night, Lieutenant General John Abizaid acknowledged that around 20 soldiers were dead or missing after US forces encountered fierce resistance during "the toughest day" of the war so far.

A six-vehicle supply convoy which had not been trained for combat had been ambushed by regular forces outside Nasiriyah ­ apparently when the young officer leading it had taken a wrong turning. Twelve members of the convoy had subsequently been reported missing, dead or captured before combat units had arrived to evacuate the wounded.

General Abizaid admitted that no "conclusive evidence" had yet been found of weapons of mass destruction but he was confident it would be. He said there had been reports of a possible chemical weapons facility in the area of Kut in central Iraq and steps were being taken to prevent its use if the reports proved to be true.

He also said it would take a long time to ensure that Iraqi "regime-support elements" were brought under control in cities like Basra and Nasiriyah.

"In these very large urban areas it will take a long time to ensure that various regime support elements are brought under control," he said. "I think that we have done quite well, actually, in all the areas we have passed through."

"The Independent" has decided to conceal the faces of all prisoners of war, in accordance with the Geneva Convention.