Posted on 11/23/2003 1:27:33 PM PST by areafiftyone
MOSUL, Iraq - Iraqi teenagers dragged the bloody bodies of two American soldiers from a wrecked vehicle and pummeled them with concrete blocks Sunday, witnesses said, describing a burst of savagery in a city once safe for Americans. Another soldier was killed by a bomb and a U.S.-allied police chief was assassinated.
The U.S.-led coalition also said it grounded commercial flights after the military confirmed that a missile struck a DHL cargo plane that landed Saturday at Baghdad International Airport with its wing aflame.
Nevertheless, American officers insisted they were making progress in bringing stability to Iraq (news - web sites), and the U.S.-appointed Governing Council named an ambassador to Washington — an Iraqi-American woman who spent the last decade lobbying U.S. lawmakers to promote democracy in her homeland.
Witnesses to the Mosul attack said gunmen shot two soldiers driving through the city center, sending their vehicle crashing into a wall. The 101st Airborne Division said the soldiers were driving to another garrison.
About a dozen swarming teenagers dragged the soldiers' bodies out of the wreckage and beat them with concrete blocks, the witnesses said.
"They lifted a block and hit them with it on the face," Younis Mahmoud, 19, said.
Another teenager, Bahaa Jassim, said some looted the vehicle of weapons, CDs and a backpack.
"They remained there for over an hour without the Americans knowing anything about it," he said. "I ... went and told other troops."
Television video showed the soldiers' bodies splayed on the ground as U.S. troops secured the area. One victim's foot appeared to have been severed.
The frenzy recalled the October 1993 scene in Somalia, when locals dragged the bodies of Marines killed in fighting with warlords through the streets.
In Baqouba, just north of Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as a 4th Infantry Division convoy passed, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the military said.
In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt confirmed the Mosul deaths but refused to provide details.
"We're not going to get ghoulish about it," he said.
The savagery of the attack was unusual for Mosul, once touted as a success story in sharp contrast to the anti-American violence seen in Sunni Muslim areas north and west of Baghdad.
In recent weeks, however, attacks against U.S. troops have increased in Mosul, raising concerns the insurgency is spreading.
Simultaneously, attacks have accelerated against Iraqis considered to be supporting Americans — such as policemen and politicians working for the interim Iraqi administration.
On Sunday, gunmen killed the Iraqi police chief of Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and his bodyguard and driver, American and Iraqi officials said. No further details were released.
The assassination occurred one day after suicide bombers struck two police stations northeast of Baghdad within 30 minutes, killing at least 14 people. Gunmen on Saturday also killed an Iraqi police colonel protecting oil installations in Mosul.
Elsewhere, Iraqi police said six U.S. Apache helicopter gunships blasted marshland after insurgents fired four rocket-propelled grenades at the American military garrison at the city's northern end. One Iraqi passer-by was killed in the air attack, police said.
In Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad, a bomb exploded at an oil compound, injuring three American civilian contractors from the U.S. firm Kellogg Brown & Root. The three suffered facial cuts from flying glass, U.S. Lt. Col. Matt Croke said.
KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, also has a significant presence at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, which was rocketed by insurgents Friday, wounding one civilian.
"We all know that Americans are being threatened," Croke said.
Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad that witnesses saw two surface-to-air missiles fired Saturday at a cargo plane operated by the Belgium-based package service DHL as it left for Bahrain.
The plane was the first civilian airliner hit by insurgents, who have shot down several military helicopters with shoulder-fired rockets.
DHL and Royal Jordanian, the only commercial passenger airline flying into Baghdad, immediately suspended flights on orders of the coalition authority.
Despite the ongoing violence, U.S. officials insisted the occupation was going well.
"If you look at the accomplishments of the coalition since March of this year, it has been enormous," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Tikrit.
Pace is touring Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq.
Also Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said veteran Washington lobbyist Rend Rahim Francke was appointed Iraq's ambassador to the United States. Francke, an Iraq native who has spent most of her life abroad, led the Iraq Foundation, a Washington-based pro-democracy group, and has helped plan Iraq's transition from Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s rule.
The appointment will renew the diplomatic ties between Washington and Baghdad severed in 1990 when Saddam invaded Kuwait.
No one should ever be in doubt about the consequences of killing American troops, or any American, for that matter.
Long ago, all people in the western world knew that harming a Roman soldier or citizen would mean not only their death, but probably the death of their entire family and possibly their entire village. The consequence of this policy and others like it were fewer casualties among Roman soldiers and citizens, and centuries of the Pax Romana.
Once upon a time, and not all that long ago, Americans had similar protection throughout the world, but it was squandered by fools and traitors. That treachery must be undone and respect for America restored. The way to do that is to prove by our deeds, and beyond all doubt, that no violent act against any American anywhere in the world shall escape swift and terrible punishment.
Considering its plea to President Bush, I cleaned up and sent the text of my earlier message to president@whitehouse.gov. A purely symbolic act, of course, but all human affairs are guided by symbolism, and sometimes even private acts of symbolism can change the world.
If those cultists believe that their "god" is so weak and capricous that he won't know them if they are touched by pork; then hang the ones we catch publically in lard soaked rags and pass the word all our bullets and bombs are made with pig guts.
Time to stop catrering to a cult that is a THOUSAND times worse than Dave Koresh and the Davidians (and we know what the U.S. gov't did to those people).
Anyone who doesn't realize that that is exactly what's at stake here has his/her head in the sand.
I don't buy it. Any G.I. who was convoying with other vehicles would have noticed if one of them went missing suddenly (especially if they heard shooting), and would'n't have left their buddies in the lurch. Something about this doesn't add up. Frankly, I think that they were out where they weren't supposed to be and were a target of opportunity for the little bastards.
First of all I'm of the nuke em till they glow school.
Any village city or town harboring killers of US troops wouldn't be there the next day.
I care not what supernatualist belief system fuels their hate.
I'm not interested in them liking us.
I'm only interested in having their ancestors (if any)
kill their own would be terrorists rather than risk our return.
In short, I'd rather have them dead than any of us.
Right, nobody lives in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
That would include not just the land and water, but the oil
Drilling though a couple feet of glass wouldn't be much of a problem.
contamination of the air could travel around the globe
and cause health problems for everyone on the planet.
Yep, that's why all of us that were children at the time,
died from the above ground testing of nukes.
The "Little Boy" was an air burst weapon detonated at 2000 feet.
It didn't "land" on anything.
My comment about no one living in those cites maybe should have ended with a
< /leg pulling > but I thought it was obvious.
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