Posted on 11/12/2003 4:51:00 AM PST by wimpycat
Nov. 12 — A truck bomb rocked the headquarters of the Italian Carabinieri police in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah on Wednesday, killing at least 14 Italians and possibly trapping others under the debris, Carabinieri officials said in Rome. The Arabic language television station Al-Jazeera said eight Iraqis were also killed.
IT WAS THE first such attack in this relatively quiet Shiite Muslim city since the beginning of the U.S.-led occupation and appeared aimed at sending a message to international organizations that they are not safe anywhere in Iraq. Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi called the bombing a “terrorist act” and said it wouldn’t deter his nation’s resolve to fight terror. A Carabinieri (military police) official said that 14 Italians were dead: 11 Carabinieri paramilitary police and three Army soldiers. Coalition official Andrea Angeli said the blast occurred after a truck rammed the gate of the Italian compound and exploded in front of the Carabinieri building. He said the force of the explosion was so strong that it blew out windows in another building across the Euphrates River. Carabinieri Maj. Roberto Riccardi said the building burst into flames, and that some Italians may be under the debris, although details were difficult to come by because communication had been severed. “We cannot exclude the possibility that there are soldiers under the rubble,” he said by telephone. In a separate attack, an American soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. patrol by the town of Taji northwest of Baghdad, Maj Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman of the 4th Infantry Division, said on Wednesday.
The latest death brings to 152 the number of soldiers killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to active combat May 1.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
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