Posted on 12/26/2003 12:39:15 AM PST by bdeaner
Guerrillas Kill Two U.S. Troops, Blasts Hit Baghdad
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas killed two U.S. soldiers in a mortar attack north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday, as rockets shook the Iraqi capital in the biggest insurgent attacks since the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Insurgents also wounded two Polish soldiers in an ambush in southern Iraq, the latest in a string of attacks on the forces of countries which have answered Washington's call for troops to help it secure the country it invaded to topple Saddam.
The U.S. casualties brought to 208 the number of U.S. combat deaths since Washington -- now under pressure over troop casualties as the 2004 presidential election approaches -- announced the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1.
A spokesperson for the 4th Infantry Division said the attack occurred at about 6:15 p.m. (10:15 a.m. EST) Thursday at a U.S. base near Baqouba, some 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad. A U.S. officer had earlier said eight were wounded, two seriously. A Polish-led division of multinational troops said the Polish troops were attacked Thursday night with bombs and small arms fire near Mahawil, about 50 miles south of the capital.
"Their injuries are not life-threatening," a spokesman for the division said.
Those attacks capped a Christmas day in Iraq shaded with gloom by projectiles that slammed into Baghdad hotels used by Westerners, embassies and an apartment block, as well as near the headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation.
Warning sirens wailed from within the complex in the ousted Iraqi leader's sprawling palace on the Tigris, but a spokesman for U.S.-led forces confirmed only that there had been "impacts" in the area, declining to elaborate on casualties or damage.
The guerrilla attacks in Baghdad were the most extensive since Saddam's capture on December 13 and followed warnings by U.S. officials that there could be spectacular attacks during the holiday season.
EMBASSIES TARGETED
Guerrillas fired rockets that hit the outside wall of the Iranian embassy, the Turkish embassy and a residential building next to the German embassy. The rockets blew a hole in the front wall of the Turkish mission and shattered windows.
Shortly after nightfall, U.S. forces using aircraft and artillery pounded suspected guerrilla hideouts on the outskirts of Baghdad for the third consecutive night as part of Operation Iron Grip, aimed at flushing guerrillas from the capital.
Washington blames attacks on Saddam supporters and foreign Islamic militants.
The bombings added to the gloom surrounding Christmas celebrations.
Baghdad churches did not hold traditional midnight mass because of lack of security, clerics said. Iraq's minority Christians, however, attended masses Thursday morning.
The lift area between the eighth and ninth floors of the Ishtar Sheraton Hotel, home to Western contractors and journalists, was struck. Debris and shattered glass littered the hotel's lobby.
A manager at the hotel said there were no casualties.
A U.S. officer said the attackers left behind leaflets urging staff to stop working at the hotel and demanding U.S. forces leave Iraq.
Another rocket hit the Bourj al-Hayat Hotel, used by Americans. No one was hurt.
(Additional reporting by Robin Pomeroy in Tikrit)
Eight US soldiers killed in Iraq Christmas violence, Japan sends troops
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Eight US soldiers have been killed across Iraq over the Christmas period, as a series of attacks battered the capital and an advance batch of Japanese soldiers left home to prepare for deployment to the war-torn country.
The latest US troop fatalities came Friday with one soldier killed defusing a roadside bomb near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, and another when his convoy hit a booby-trap explosive between Baquba and Samarra, said Captain Jefferson Wolfe.
"There was an IED (improvised explosive device) attack on a convoy, two soldiers were injured, one of whom later died," Wolfe said.
"Soldiers returned fire and were able to kill two former regime elements."
Their deaths took to eight the number of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq since Christmas Eve.
On Thursday night, two US soldiers died during a mortar attack on a US army base near Baquba, military spokeswoman Josslyn Aberle said Friday.
Four other soldiers were wounded in the attack, she said, while an officer in Baquba put the wounded toll at six.
The latest deaths raise to 209 the number of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared major combat over May 1.
On Wednesday, three US soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division were killed in a roadside bombing near Samarra and another from the 1st Armoured Division died in a Baghdad blast.
Two US soldiers were also wounded during a gun battle Friday in the northern capital of Mosul, said Major Hugh Cate of the 101st Airborne Division.
Further south, two Polish soldiers were wounded early Friday in a bomb and mortar attack on their convoy outside a military base, a spokesman for the Polish military said.
"One soldier was wounded to the hand and another to the leg. They are in serious but stable condition," Colonel Zdzislaw Gnatowski was quoted as saying by the Polish news agency PAP.
The Polish contingent has so far lost one soldier in combat in Iraq since the start of the US-led war late March.
And to the north in Khaldiyah, near the flaspoint town of Fallujah, witnesses said US soldiers sealed off part of a town and ordered residents out before launching a missile strike on the home of a suspected anti-coalition rebel.
Meanwhile, the first groups of Japan's military contingent left for the Middle East on Friday to set the stage for a humanitarian mission in Iraq, the nation's most dangerous deployment of personnel since World War II.
Television footage showed airforce servicemen, clad in civilian clothes, leaving New Tokyo International Airport at Narita, just east of Tokyo.
They were headed for Qatar, where the main US airbase is located, and Kuwait, where Japan's airforce planes will be based, to transport medical and other supplies to Iraqi airports, Japanese media said.
"We want them to make a great contribution in reconstruction work and humanitarian assistance," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a press conference.
"The time has come," advance party chief Colonel Tadashi Miyagawa told reporters just before the departure.
"I do not see any immediate danger as we have gathered information on the local security situation," the Jiji Press news agency quoted Miyagawa as saying.
The advance mission is supposed to check airport safety and make other preparations to receive about 150 other airforce members possibly in January.
The dispatch is part of Japan's plan to send a total of some 1,000 personnel to the region to engage in humanitarian and reconstruction work in Iraq.
An advance mission of ground troops is scheduled to leave Japan in January, with the core unit expected to start arriving in Iraq in late February.
Back in Iraq, the US military said it had captured five men suspected of firing rockets at the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) headquarters in Baghdad on Christmas night.
Two rockets hit a parking lot near the fortress-like complex of the US-led CPA compound at 11:15 pm (2015 GMT) Thursday, the military said.
No one was wounded in the attack, which came just hours after rebels sped around Baghdad, lobbing rockets and mortars at more than a half-dozen sites around the city, including hotels, home to foreigners, and three embassies.
The US military conducted Thursday its third night of Operation Iron Grip, in which the 1st Armoured Division has rounded up Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) loyalists and pounded suspected insurgent locations with artillery and aircraft cannon fire.
Christmas Day had ended the way it began -- with explosions.
Projectiles struck the Turkish ambassador's residence as well as the Sheraton hotel Wednesday night and Thursday morning, causing limited damage.
Thursday's rebel offensive came amid predictions by the US-led coalition administering Iraq that insurgents would wage a spectacular offensive to embarrass the US military during the Christmas period.
U.S. Army troops secure the scene of a failed suicide car bomb attack on an American convoy, in Baghdad, December 26, 2003. One man, who Iraqi police suspected of being the attacker, was killed when the car exploded as a convoy drove past. Elsewhere, though, two U.S. soldiers were killed by bombs in two separate incidents in Iraq on Friday, a U.S. military spokesman said. Two other U.S. soldiers were killed in a mortar attack on a U.S. camp near Baquba on Thursday, extending the biggest spate of guerrilla activity in and around the Iraqi capital since U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein earlier this month. REUTERS/Ali Jasim
An Iraqi policeman attends the scene of a failed suicide car bomb attack on an American convoy, in Baghdad, December 26, 2003. One man, who Iraqi police suspected of being the attacker, was killed when a car exploded as a convoy drove past. Elsewhere, though, two U.S. soldiers were killed by bombs in two separate incidents in Iraq on Friday, a U.S. military spokesman said. Two other U.S. soldiers were killed in a mortar attack on a U.S. camp near Baquba on Thursday, extending the biggest spate of guerrilla activity in and around the Iraqi capital since U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein earlier this month. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz
A hooded Iraqi prisoner rides on a Humvee guarded by a U.S. soldier at a military base in Tikrit, December 26, 2003. Guerrillas killed two U.S. soldiers in a mortar attack north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday, as rockets shook the Iraqi capital in the biggest insurgent attacks since the capture of Saddam Hussein. Insurgents also wounded two Polish soldiers in an ambush in southern Iraq , the latest in a string of attacks on the forces of countries which have answered Washington's call for troops to help it secure the country it invaded to topple Saddam. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
An Iraqi woman holds up the holy book of Quran during a protest in Baghdad Friday Dec. 26, 2003. Several dozen women demanded the release of their husbands who they say are held by the U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
An Iraqi vendor stands inside his damaged store along a commercial street in central Baghdad. A roadside bomb exploded on a busy Baghdad street, blowing off the hand of a policeman and seriously wounding two other officers(AFP/Henghameh Fahimi)
A U.S. soldier from the 1st Infantry Division guards a fortified Baghdad compound containing the Palestine and Ishtar Sheraton (R) hotels December 25, 2003. Guerrillas sent more than a dozen rockets and mortar rounds slamming into Baghdad on Christmas Day, hitting hotels, embassies and the vicinity of the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq. Photo by Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters
U.S. soldiers at the Task Force Ironhorse military base in Tikrit, phone home to their families on Christmas Day, December 25, 2003. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
An Iraqi girl makes her way through a hole made by a rocket in a building close to the German Embassy in Baghdad on thursday Dec. 25, 2003, after guerrillas hit central Baghdad with more than a dozen grenades, rockets and mortar shells on Christmas Day. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
A U.S. Army tank secures the area outside Baghdad City Council, Thursday Dec. 25, 2003. The Council building was hit by one rocket early Thursday morning. Above the end of the tank's barrel are festive representations of reindeer antlers. ( AP Photo/Samir Mizban )
Iraqi Policeman stands guard next to an unexploded rocket outside Baghdad City Council Thursday Dec. 25, 2003. The council building was hit by another rocket early Thursday morning but no-one was injured. (AP Photo/ Samir Mizban )
The Turkish embassy's flag flies next to holes punched into a wall in one of about a dozen rocket attacks, launched by guerillas in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, December 25, 2003. The rockets and mortar rounds slammed into central Baghdad on Thursday in fresh guerrilla attacks, as the U.S. military said an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb. The missiles blew a hole in the front wall of the Turkish mission and shattered windows but caused little damage in the other blasts, witnesses said. REUTERS/Akram Saleh
An Iraqi man shows a piece of shrapnel he found outside the apartment building behind him after it was hit by a rocket in Baghdad Thursday Dec. 25, 2003, injuring one woman. The apparent target of the attack was the Sheraton hotel, behind, which took at least one rocket. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic)
A hole is punched through a bedroom wall after one of several rockets hit a residential building, injuring a woman sleeping inside, in Baghdad December 25, 2003. About half a dozen rockets slammed into central Baghdad Thursday in guerrilla attacks on several targets in the city, witnesses said, but there were no immediate reports of deaths. Rockets hit a hotel used by Westerners, an apartment block and the area where the headquarters of the U.S.-led administration is situated shortly after 6 a.m.. REUTERS/Chris Helgren
US soldiers from the 1-22 battalion of the 4th Infantry Division rides on a military vehicle while leaving their base for a patrol around Tikrit, 180 Kilometers (110 miles) north of Iraqi capital Baghdad(AFP/Jewel Samad)
U.S. Army Cpl. Kerry Otwaska of Genoa City, Wis., guards the entrance of St. Raphael's church during Christmas mass in Baghdad, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2003. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic)
U.S. Army soldiers look over the remains of a car which exploded, killing two men when a roadside bomb exploded on a road near the Baghdad airport, December 26, 2003. No further details were available. Guerrillas extended the biggest insurgent attacks in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's capture, killing four U.S. soldiers in mortar and bomb attacks, the U.S. military said Friday. REUTERS/Akram Saleh
Iraqi Shiite muslims beat a bronze head of the ousted leader Saddam Hussein during a protest after Friday prayers in Baghdad's Sadr City, Friday Dec. 26, 2003. Thousands demanded Saddam to be executed by the people. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
The end of MAJOR COMBAT has not been announced, the end of the MILITARY PHASE of the war was announced.
The DOW stands at 10,332 today, which represents a 24% increase since the first of seven Democratic candidates pronounced the economy to be "the worst since Hoover".
The left-leaning journalist's favorite hobby horse these days. How difficult or untruthful would it be to simply say "since the end of major combat" rather than "since Washington [or alternately, "Bush"] announced the end of major combat." Organized resistance from the old Iraqi army is over; now is the phase of guerilla resistance. The regime is gone and the Iraqi army is gone with it.
Only those with a point to make continue to count bodies since "Bush declared."
His take was this:
His unit saw many soldiers being caught 'off guard' or relaxing, when they should have been watching out more carefully. It was at these moments that those who wished to attack did so and did so with some effectiveness. He was of the firm opinion that carlessness on individual units or patrols, was a major factor in allowing opportunities for attack.
I should also state that he said the reception of his unit in every town and village that they passed through was of overwhelming joy on the part of the locals. Old ladies in tears, hands clasped together in thankful prayers to God. Food being given and then later, sold to them by villagers. Fresh whole chickens and vegetables being the most common.
Iraqi Shiite muslims stone a bronze head of the former leader Saddam Hussein while a man beats the statue with a show during a protest after Friday prayers in Baghdad's Sadr City, Friday Dec. 26, 2003. Thousands demanded Saddam's execution by the people. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
An Iraqi Shiite beats a bronze head of former leader Saddam Hussein during a protest after Friday prayers in Baghdad's Sadr City, Friday Dec. 26, 2003. Thousands demanded Saddam's execution by the people. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim artist Wissam Ghadi paints a portrait of toppled leader Saddam Hussein, from his Al Sadr city studio on the outkirts of Baghdad, on December 25, 2003. Guerrillas in Iraq staged multiple assaults that killed four U.S. soldiers, keeping up violence that has raged on since Saddam Hussein's capture, the U.S. military said Friday. REUTERS/Ali Jasim
Sheesh!
Somebody throw a towel over that mug, will ya?!!
There's a good reason those mullahs demand face coverings!
A U.S. Army soldier stands next to a destroyed car on a highway to the Baghdad's International airport, Friday Dec. 26, 2003. U.S. soldiers on the scene said they suspected that explosives went off prematurely. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Funny how that can happen...
Soldiers of the 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion carry Pfc. Charles Bush Jr. from the services held at the Gethsemane Full Gospel Church in Buffalo, N.Y., Friday, Dec. 26, 2003. Pfc. Bush Jr. was killed from an improvised roadside explosive device in Iraq. (AP Photo/Don Heupel)
Jamelah Bush, 11, daughter of Pfc. Charles E. Bush Jr., of Buffalo, N.Y., receives an encased U.S. flag from a member of the 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion as her grandfather, Charles E. Bush Sr., looks on at St. Matthew's Cemetery in West Seneca, N.Y., Friday, Dec. 26, 2003. Pfc. Bush Jr. was killed on Dec. 19 in Balad, Iraq, by an improvised roadside explosive device. Bush, a cook, was working as a door gunner providing rear security for a convoy when he was killed. (AP Photo/Don Heupel)
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