AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday an errant missile that fell on a Baghdad marketplace, killing at least 15 people, may have been fired by the Iraqis, perhaps in a deliberate attack.
Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said in a briefing at U.S. Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar that the Iraqis were using old missiles and firing them without radar guidance to prevent detection by U.S. and British aircraft.
"We've seen uncontrolled surface-to-air missile fire," he told a news conference on the eighth day of the U.S.-led war.
"I think it's entirely possible that this may in fact have been an Iraqi missile that went up and came down, or given the behavior of the regime lately, it may have been a deliberate attack," he said.
Brooks said U.S. aircraft were attacking Baghdad at the time of the incident on Wednesday, but the targets were "in a different area" of the Iraqi capital.
But he said: "We won't have a final answer until we're in Baghdad ourselves."
Witnesses blamed U.S.-led forces for the missile attack, which sparked fury among crowds of Iraqis in the northern Baghdad street where the weapon fell on Wednesday.
Brooks said a U.S. investigation had determined that all U.S. missiles fired during the period had hit their intended targets.
"They hit their target, we're certain of that," he said. "The rest of the story we just don't know. We may never know."
