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The US military on Wednesday denied Iraq's accusation that US warplanes had attacked buses carrying Western "human shields" traveling to Iraq.
In a statement issued at its war headquarters in Qatar, the US Central Command dismissed the charge as "false."
It said it reached the conclusion after "a review of coalition air strike data and an independent news media report, including interviews with passengers in the convoy."
The statement was in response to the charge by Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf, who said Monday that coalition warplanes attacked two buses carrying the human shields on the highway from Jordanian capital Amman to Baghdad.
Hundreds of Western peace activists, including those from the United States and Britain, traveled to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad before the US-led invasion began on March 20.
Some of them camped out at major power plants and water facilities in an attempt to prevent attacks on those targets by US-led coalition warplanes.
(Xinhua News Agency April 3, 2003)
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