AP: Video Shows Iraq Wedding Celebration - Please rate this Yahoo story

Iraqi woman Haleema Shihab, 32, lies with a fractured leg and arm in the hospital in Ramadi, 110 km west of Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites), Sunday May 23, 2004. Haleema was asleep with her husband and children Wednesday May 19, in a house after a wedding party, when U.S. helicopters fired on the party in the remote desert near the border with Syria, killing more than 40 people. Haleema ran with her youngest child in her arms and her two other boys close behind, when a shell exploded next to her, killing her two sons. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

RAMADI, Iraq - A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck.


The U.S. military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters.


"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."


But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.


The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car — decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.


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