American Prisoners Paraded By Iraqis

The US suffered a series of setbacks yesterday when stiffer than expected Iraqi resistance saw six to 10 marines killed, 14 wounded and 12 missing in action. It was the American military's worst day since the "Black Hawk Down" debacle in Somalia a decade ago.

Those missing in action included five prisoners captured by the Iraqis and shown on Iraqi television. The broadcast, which included lingering footage of four American corpses, brought expressions of outrage from the US administration.

After heavy fighting almost the length of the Euphrates, with the worst of it concentrated in a battle for the town of Nassiriya, the US army general John Abizaid admitted: "It's the toughest day of resistance that we've had thus far."

He added: "We understand that there may be other tough days ahead of us but the outcome is still certain."

Most of the casualties came in the battle for Nassiriya, strategically important because of its bridges over the Euphrates which open the way to Baghdad. But there was also heavy fighting further north at Najaf and in the south at Umm Qasr and Basra.

The five US soldiers, including the first American woman taken in combat, were captured after their armoured vehicle took a wrong turning at Souq al-Shuyuk, near Nassiriya.

The al-Jazeera satellite channel showed footage of a US soldier lying prone on a camp-bed in a bare, concrete room. His face was covered in blood, with wounds to his side and arm.

He was propped up for the interview by a reporter from Iraqi television. Asked his name, he replied haltingly: "Edgar, my name is Edgar." He said he was from Texas.

Another soldier, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, who identified himself as "Private First Class Miller", was asked why he had gone to Iraq. In a strained voice, he said: "I was told to come here."

Like the other prisoners, he was from a vehicle repair unit, the 507th Maintenance Company, from Fort Bliss, Texas, rather than a combat outfit.

He said: "I just followed orders. I came to fix broke things. I don't want to kill anybody."

Asked what he thought about the Iraqi people, he said: "They don't bother me, I don't bother them."

The atmosphere throughout all the interviews was tense, with the prisoners of war uncertain and confused by the halting English of the interviewers.

Another soldier, clearly more nervous and bewildered, his hands folded between his legs, his head turning slowly from one questioner to another, gave his name as Sergeant James Riley, 31, from New Jersey.

Also interviewed was a black woman, who gave her name as Shawna, 30, from Texas, who had a bloody bandage on her left ankle.

The sight of a captured woman soldier will create shock in a Muslim country such as Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world.

Al-Jazeera later showed additional and lengthy footage of the body of a US soldier lying on the road beside a military vehicle and four more corpses lying in pools of blood on the floor of another bare, concrete room. Dog tags and personal papers were on show.

At least two appeared to have been shot in the head and another had a groin wound. In a second room, a smiling Iraqi uncovered the remaining bodies, which had blackened faces.

President George Bush, commenting on the interviews with the US prisoners, said that those responsible for the mistreatment of PoWs would be treated as war criminals.

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, described the television interviews as a violation of the Geneva conventions that protect the rights of prisoners of war.

Downing Street appealed to British broadcasters not to show the footage, though Sky News did. Tony Blair condemned the Iraqi government for filming the prisoners: "Sometimes when people ask me 'is it really necessary to get rid of Saddam?' I say look at the things he does.

"Parading people in that way is contrary to the Geneva convention, contrary to all the proper rules of conflict."

CNN, in common with other US broadcasters, did not show videotape or photographs from which the prisoners or corpses could be identified. The channel broadcast a still photograph from al-Jazeera showing the uniformed bodies but without revealing any identifying features.

The Iraqi government will see Nassiriya as the first test of US resolve. Iraqi officials have repeatedly expressed the view that the US administration and public do not have the stomach for heavy American casualties.

The disturbing footage from Iraq was shown at length on al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based network that has become the west's window into the Arab world. Iraq's vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, speaking at a news conference earlier in the day, said: "Within hours you will watch American prisoners on TV screens and you will see films of burnt tanks at Souq al-Shuyuk."

Mr Rumsfeld described the broadcast of the interviews with the prisoners as a breach of the conventions covering PoWs:"It's illegal to do things to PoWs that are humiliating to those prisoners."

However, Amanda Williamson, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said it would not automatically be a contravention of the Geneva convention. "There's an article that prisoners should not be exposed to public curiosity, but this was not envisaged to include the media, so it's not a violation per se to put them on TV." Whether they were being exposed to public curiosity would depend on how they appeared on TV.

The military strategist Harlan Ullman, the architect of the American tactic of "shock and awe", said: "Iraq is incredibly stupid in releasing this tape of the dead Americans, because it is going to enrage the Americans and not help the Iraqis. They are making a big mistake."