DESERT STORM: DAY 28 : Military

Two missiles pierced the entrance of an underground shelter in Baghdad and exploded inside. Iraq said 500 people were killed. Rescuers clawing through the debris found eight survivors immediately after the bombing. Abdul Razak Hassan Janaby, a supervisor of the facility, said 235 bodies were retrieved, and at least 300 were believed still in the wreckage. Residents crowded around the wreckage, looking for relatives and friends.

* The United States said the bombed shelter was a bunker used as a military command center. Marine Brig. Gen. Richard I. Neal told reporters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the shelter had been recently painted in camouflage colors and was used by the Iraqi military command. “We don’t feel we attacked the wrong bunker or we made a mistake,” Neal said. “I can’t explain if there were civilians in there why they were in there.”

* President Bush’s spokesman reiterated the U.S. military’s version of the shelter bombing. Marlin Fitzwater called it a “tragedy” but insisted that Iraq could stop the bombing at once by withdrawing from Kuwait.

* In the overnight raids in Iraq, telecommunications centers in Baghdad were hit, as was the government’s Palace of Conferences. The air campaign continued at a relentless pace, with 2,800 sorties in the previous 24 hours.

During one mission over Iraq, a Saudi F-5 jet was lost and the pilot was missing, Saudi Col. Ahmed Robayan said. It was the second Saudi plane lost.