At least one US soldier killed in attacks on convoys near Samarra

RIGGA, Iraq (AFP) - At least one US soldier was killed when two almost simultaneous bomb attacks hit convoys near the Iraqi town of Samarra, scene of deadly clashes between troops and insurgents two days ago, a US officer at the scene told AFP.

"There was one soldier killed," said the clearly distressed officer, who declined to give his name or elaborate.

Reporters said the convoy was escorting a truck carrying a damaged Apache helicopter from Samarra south to Baghdad. The aircraft had a large hole in its rear but it was unclear whether it was accidental or through enemy action.

Witness Kanaan Kanel Kanaani told reporters that the last vehicle in the dozen-strong convoy, a Humvee, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade or a mine.

"The driver lost control and the vehicle veered across the road, crashing into a parked pickup loaded with oranges," said Kanaani. "One soldier was killed."

Arafat Enab, 21, said that it was an improvised explosive device of the sort favoured by anti-US insurgents that hit the Humvee.

"Half of the vehicle was destroyed and the driver received fatal head injuries," said Enab.

An AFP correspondent on the scene saw a military air rescue helicopter land on the scene.

A US military spokeswoman said she had no immediate report on the bombings but was checking with operational commanders.

I am Aircrewmen in the United States Navy, and forward deployed in the Med fighting the War On Terrorism. Every time I walk into the hanger to preflight, I look at the wall and can see every casualty of this war may they be American, British, Italian, Japanese or any of the great countries that we are allied with in this war. It is actually depressing to turn the TV on and see AFRTS and see or hear about another death and I wonder why can we not stop our soldiers from dying everyday. What are our Commanders doing to protect my brothers and sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan? I wonder if complacency is taking over or are our front line Commanders being to restrictive on our troops and not allowing them to take the fight to the enemy.
My personal opinion is just that we need to rethink our position in this situation. I am fully supportive of President Bush in this situation, but I ask is there anything else that we can do to protect these men and women of our armed services even more. I feel that we need to hit the insurgents more often just as we did on 1 DEC 03 and quit allowing ourselves to be hit and not doing anything about it.

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