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.
Unless the CINCs at the Pentagon wake up and smell the coffee, we are in for a long string of series deep $hi!.
FRegards!
When we look back on this period some decades from now, the war in Iraq will be remembered as a huge blunder from just about every perspective -- military, political, and economic.
ABC - ugh!
Agreed, but what if the Pentagon is telling the truth? I would be very relieved to hear that the bodies were merely looted and not mutilated.
The Bush daughters are serving this county more than you will ever.
And I asked you a simple question, "Like many of my veteran brothers, I served four years. Vietnam era. Well, are you going to tell us how they served?" Now you say,
Why would I tell them how THEY served? They didn't question the sacrifices of others.
You seem to be chasing your tail. I suggest you think before typing in the future. You have totally discredited yourself here.
If you want respect Joe, then you also have to give some. A little advice for you Joe, as you wear your bitterness on your sleave like no other here on this board.
What a moronic statement. I don't need respect from you. I'm not here for a popularity contest, or to gain your respect. LOL!
You don't get it do you? You aint seen bitter.
After spending four years in the service, going to multiple, nasty, POS countries, having my friends die around me etc, I have every right to bitch about your stupid a$$ comment about "Bushes daughters serving this country more that I ever did."
That's 100% pathetic.
You really ought to end this. Your BS is really deep. Your nothing but a DC party boy.
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Boy, that makes it all better, don't it......Sheeeeeeeeet......
These little sawed off third world AHs aint worth sh*t. Killing them 10,000 wouldn't help.
Yes.
[JoeHadenuf]:Bush's daughters ought to get out of their BMWs and limos and go serve.
Do YOU still stand by your pathetic statements?
I wouldn't trade places with the Bush kids, with what they have to face for the rest of their life, for anything. Most normal people would feel that way too. Yet you still have no clue about this do you? Or do you not have the decency to apologize for your pathetic remark?
BTW, I lost people that I know at WTC. My small little suburban town, many miles away from any POS front line lost 5 people at WTC. We choked on the smoke and ash of 3,000 dead people for days. My brother who has bad knees and could not walk down the stairs, had to carried down 30 some-odd flights to get the hell out of WTC. You have no freeping clue why we are in Iraq and your ignorant statement above which suggests that we are in for the "worth" of Iraq is pathetic.
My dad who was injured fighting Nazi's in Italy taught me to always be ready to defend my country and I listened to what he had to say and I watched year after freeping year as I grew up as the media reported the horrors of Vietnam -- throughout my entire childhood right up to the time where my lotto number was #1. Fortunately the draft had ended.
I would never KNOWINGLY question the service of somebody who has served their country in the military and it is pathetic on your part to imply that I did just to avoid talking about you ignorant remarks. And it's stupid on your part to the question the sacrifice of others such as the president's kids and the sacrifices they will have to live with for the rest of their life or until at least every last terrorist is caught and killed.
Treat others with respect or else don't B*tch when it comes back at you rude boy!
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Yes.
I doubt it.
If they had said that the soldiers were beaten then they would be accused of inciting our anger. Now instead, they say the soldiers were not beaten and they are accused of covering up an angry Iraq citizenry.
Say anything...eh?
Precisely why they ARE in cover up mode.
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