The Iraqis remember every year what they call the "black day" when the night showed its teeth to children, women and the elderly before the first rays of the sun rose at 4:30 am on Tuesday, February 13, 1991, when two American fighters bombed a shelter in the Al-Amiriya neighborhood. The center of the capital, Baghdad, as part of Operation Desert Storm launched by an international coalition to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

The American bombing was carried out with two smart bombs specially made to hit the concrete shelter No. 25. The first of them penetrated the fortified ceiling, while the second reached its interior, killing 408 people, including 261 women and 52 children, the youngest of whom was no more than 7 days old, as well as 26 Arab citizens.

The Amiriya shelter was fortified and could accommodate hundreds of people (Getty Images)

bunker

The shelter was built with a group of other shelters by Western companies during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), in the hope that it would be resistant in design, equipped to fortify against mass strikes, i.e. strikes by unconventional chemical or biological weapons, and sealed against atomic and nuclear radiation and air pollution. With these radiations, and a capacity of 1500 people, they can take refuge inside it for days without the need for the outside world, as it is equipped with water, food, electricity and clean, unpolluted air.

The building consists of 3 floors, the floor area is 500 square meters, and its wall thickness is more than one and a half meters, as well as its roof armed with iron beams 4 centimeters thick.

Pictures of the victims of the Amriya shelter massacre (communication sites)

And about the massacre of the Al-Amiriya shelter, journalist Ali Karim Ithhib says that one of his relatives named Abu Taiba (40 years old) was with his family of 3 children and his wife in the shelter, and his memory still preserves what his father told him about those horrific moments when they did not find any of the remains of the family Except for a 4-year-old girl.

"The scenes in the shelter after the bombing were horrific, as hundreds of corpses were reduced to ashes, and other completely burnt bodies were recovered and the features of their owners disappeared," Ithhib added, quoting his father.

The painful incident was embodied by sculptural and artistic works, most notably the sculptural monument, which depicts a human head among the sturdy stone molds surrounding it, making the skin of the face tightened excessively with harsh surface features that are tense with many shades.

Atwan considered that the movie "The Sad Dawn" is a faithful historical symbol of the incident (Al-Jazeera)

Sad Dawn


. A feature film entitled "The Sad Dawn", written by Iraqi writer Sabah Atwan, directed by Salah Karam, and soundtrack by Naseer Shamma, was also completed to embody this tragedy.

Atwan relied on witnesses from the families of the victims to give the actual value of the symbolism of the tragedy by filming the scenes from inside the shelter itself.

Atwan sees in the film a faithful historical symbolism of the incident, as the truth was not falsified, not even with a single letter, considering it as a humanitarian, moral and national duty.

He said that the film was a great success, was translated into English and French, and won the approval of the Iraqi people, and embarrassed the United States, which used various excuses to evade its crime.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Atwan confirmed that he wrote the script based on logistical assistance he obtained from outside the Radio and Television Corporation at the time.

Al-Kinani is likely to provide sources from the Saddam Hussein regime with the American administration with information about the shelter (Al-Jazeera)

Questions and Mysteries

Although more than three decades have passed since the American bombing, a number of questions are still swirling around the incident without clear answers.

Most notably, how did the US intelligence obtain accurate information about the shelter?

And where did they get the information about that?

And what is the probability that there are sources close to Saddam Hussein who leaked this and cooperated with them through espionage?

Security expert Adnan al-Kinani answers these and other questions by acknowledging the existence of previous cooperation between sources from Saddam Hussein’s regime with the US administration, reinforcing his words with an incident that occurred minutes before the bombing when the late president told one of his personal escorts to leave the place because there were intentions to bomb the shelter from American planes. That's a few minutes after he left the shelter.

Al-Kinani - who worked as a brigadier general in the Republican Guard before the US invasion of the country in 2003 - believes that this and other details give a clear indication of the existence of cooperation with the US administration to bomb the shelter with sources from Saddam Hussein's regime, in addition to a breach of the regime.

Al-Kinani reinforces his words by asking about the secret of telling Saddam Hussein from one of his companions the necessity of evacuating the shelter because of the intentions of bombing him, and how the information about the bombing was leaked at that time until it reached the office of the late Iraqi president?

He added - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that these indicators confirm the existence of communication between the US administration with sources close to Saddam's regime.


And whether the US justifications were logical that the shelter was a military headquarters, Al-Kinani asserts that the General Command of the Iraqi Armed Forces used the basement floor of the shelter as its headquarters.

Al-Araji described the bombing of the Al-Amiriya shelter as a disgrace on the military and political decision-makers in America (Al-Jazeera)

Historical point of view

The pages of American history are full of many horrific scenes against defenseless civilians, whether through bloody wars or air strikes, and the crime of the Amiriya shelter is one of the evidence of this, says Abdul Karim Al-Araji, a professor of history at the University of Baghdad, describing this crime as a "stain" on the face Military and political decision makers in America.


Al-Araji confirms - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that the United States obtained secret information about the shelter through its high-tech technologies, and believes that the American strike was not absurd, but rather it was very painful and that its purpose was to kill innocents only.

He recalled scenes of what he lived through in those moments, like most of the Iraqi people, and how the Iraqis were living in a state of terror as a result of the bombing and the sounds of American shells that were falling on them and targeting civilians and innocents.