A KENT schoolgirl has described the horror of seeing on TV missiles and bombs ravage Baghdad where members of her family live.

For Sulapha Manaim, Fordwich Close, Allington, Maidstone, every day of the war brings uncertainty about the safety of her grandmother and aunts and uncles who live in Iraq's main city.

Sulapha, 15, a pupil at Maidstone Grammar School for Girls, has watched in fear as the "precision" attacks by American and British forces pound the city each day, and occasionally stray off-course into civilian areas.

She said: "It is horrible. We can call the family and check they are all safe, but we don't know what is happening all the time."

Sulapha, an only child, was born in Britain but did not move here permanently until 1991. She lives with her parents who left Iraq for political reasons in 1976.

Her father, who does not wish to be named, said he would never return to his homeland while Saddam's regime is in power. He says there is a culture of fear in Iraq where people will not even speak out against Saddam in private, or on the telephone, in case they are found out and tortured.

There is a widespread feeling that many Iraqis are scared to form a rebellion because they fear that Saddam will win the war and the Americans will offer them no protection from his wrath - as in 1991, when Saddam brutally crushed an uprising which the Americans had encouraged.

Sulapha stressed: "People will not stand up to Saddam because they do not know if they will be abandoned again.

"I agree in principle with what is being done. If Saddam is removed and life improves for Iraqis then that would be good. But I do not agree with the way it is being done.

"You cannot fight terror with terror. America and Britain are killing the people they are claiming to help. Arab television is showing pictures of civilian casualties and deaths, images which are not shown here. They are horrible."

She added: "Many of the people that know me, and know that I am from Iraq, say that they support the war because it will help Iraqis. They do not realise how brutal this war is."