Posted on 03/15/2004 12:04:31 PM PST by yonif
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Three American civilians were killed and two wounded in a drive-by shooting Friday in the northern city of Mosul, the U.S. military said.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Gilroy, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the victims worked for a non-governmental organization. The wounded were being treated at the U.S. Army combat support hospital in Mosul.
U.S. Lt. Col. Joseph Piek, a spokesman for American forces in Mosul, said in an e-mail message that the victims were traveling in one car on the eastern side of the city when they were attacked.
Witnesses said they saw victims lying on the street and inside the car, including a man in the front passenger's side with his seat belt fastened.
Let's make sure to give it to them, ok? Post everything that happens to breaking news, and let's convince voters to appease just like Spain did. Then surely the world will be safe!
Among those unfriendly locals, though, are the really dangerous ones, the tourists from Syria and who knows where else. The old axiom about 'professionals are predictable, it's the armatures that are dangerous' is right. At any given moment a passing 'civilian' could whip out a pistol and rush your convoy.
People that are crazy enough to charge up armored humvees with a 9m wouldn't think twice about rolling up a couple of missionaries.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1098206/posts
I believe they were missionaries.
Sort of. They wore hats both as missionaries and also as technicians keeping water supplies pure and flowing, not that the two activities are at all incompatable.
Drive-by shooting in Iraq kills three American missionaries on humanitarian projectEMERY P. DALESIO, Associated Press Writer
Monday, March 15, 2004(03-15) 19:25 PST RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) --
Three Americans killed in a shooting attack Monday in northern Iraq were Baptist missionaries on a humanitarian mission -- a water purification project for the troubled country, church officials and friends said.
The Southern Baptist International Mission Board identified the victims as Larry T. Elliott, 60, and Jean Dover Elliott, 58, of Cary, N.C.; and Karen Denise Watson, 38, of Bakersfield, Calif.
"They knew going into Iraq, they couldn't really share their Christian faith unless somebody asked them," said Larry Kingsley, a church deacon. "They were there in a humanitarian situation. They were people who just had a great heart for helping people out."
The Elliotts were scouting the best location for a water purification project, said Michelle DeVoss of Cary, whose First Baptist Church in the Raleigh suburb was home when the Elliotts returned from Honduras, where they had been missionaries since 1978.
Watson was a detention officer with the Kern County Sheriff's Department in Bakersfield before joining the Richmond, Va.-based mission board in January 2003, said Bill Bangham, a spokesman for the group that coordinates missionary activities for the Southern Baptist Convention.
She arrived in Iraq earlier this month to help the Elliotts and others study how best to allocate the mission board's humanitarian efforts, Bangham said.
U.S. Lt. Col. Joseph Piek, a spokesman for American forces in the northern city of Mosul, said in an e-mail message the victims were traveling in one car on the eastern side of the city when they were attacked.
Two mission board workers wounded in the attack were being treated at the U.S. Army combat support hospital. Their names were being withheld Monday until family members had been contacted.
Tue Mar 16,12:01 AM ET
Aid worker David E. McDonnall, shown in an undated photo, was injured in a drive-by shooting in Mosul, Iraq, Monday, March 15, 2004, according to the Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board. Three other American aid workers were killed in the attack.
(AP Photo/Southwester Baptist Theological Seminary via Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
Mon Mar 15, 8:14 PM ET
Karen Denise Watson, 38, of Bakersfield, Calif., shown in this undated photo, was one of three American civilians killed in a drive-by shooting Friday, March 12, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq, the U.S. military said.
(AP Photo/International Mission Board)
Mon Mar 15, 8:14 PM ET
Larry T. Elliott, 60, of Cary, N.C., shown in this undated photo, was one of three American civilians killed in a drive-by shooting Friday, March 12, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq, the U.S. military said.
Mon Mar 15, 8:14 PM ET
Jean Dover Elliott, 58, of Cary, N.C., shown in this undated photo, was one of three American civilians killed in a drive-by shooting Friday, March 12, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq, the U.S. military said.
No confirmation yet that it was David E. McDonnall, but the wire services have distributed his photo along with those of the three killed.
3 killed, 2 North Texans wounded in Iraq
By Carol Rosenberg
Knight Ridder News Service
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three Southern Baptist aid workers were killed and a North Texas couple wounded when gunmen ambushed their car Monday night in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, in what appears to be the second targeted attack on civilians doing reconstruction work in less than a week.
Rowlett residents David E. McDonnall, 28, and Carrie Taylor McDonnall, 26, were seriously injured in the attack, according to the International Mission Board. They had been studying at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth but took a break in November to go to Iraq on a humanitarian aid mission, said Greg Tomlin, Southwestern's director of public relations.
The five were traveling in the same car Monday evening, and were discovered in an area of eastern Mosul by an off-duty Iraqi police officer shortly after the 5 p.m. shooting, said Lt. Col. Joseph Piek, a U.S. Army spokesman for coalition operations in Mosul. A coalition spokeswoman in Baghdad described them as victims of a "drive-by shooting."
The Southern Baptist International Mission Board, based in Richmond, Va., identified the dead as Larry T. Elliott, 60; his wife, Jean Dover Elliott, 58, both of Cary, N.C.; and Karen Denise Watson, 38, of Bakersfield, Calif.
The Iraqi policeman took the two survivors to an Iraqi hospital. U.S. Army helicopter crews later moved them to an Army combat support hospital in Mosul. Southwestern officials were told that David McDonnall was shot twice in the abdomen and Carrie McDonnall was shot four times, though it wasn't clear where, Tomlin said.
Iraqi police were gathering evidence, with involvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Piek said.
The FBI is assisting Iraqi police in another apparent targeted killing, this time of two U.S. Defense Department contractors and their Iraqi translator last Tuesday. Fern Holland, 33, from Oklahoma, Robert Zangas, 44, a former Marine from suburban Pittsburgh, and their U.S.-paid Iraqi interpreter, Selwa Ourmashe, died in an apparent ambush as they drove without a security escort near the city of Hillah, 35 miles south of Baghdad.
Four members of the new Iraqi Police force were being held for interrogation in the Hillah killings, along with a former member of the Iraqi police force dating to the time of Saddam Hussein's regime, and a sixth man.
The Baptists were on a humanitarian mission -- scouting a location for a water purification project, church officials and friends said.
"They knew going into Iraq they couldn't really share their Christian faith unless somebody asked them," said Larry Kingsley, a church deacon. "They were there in a humanitarian situation. They were people who just had a great heart for helping people out."
Although news of the attack is upsetting, Tomlin said, missionaries accept that they may face dangers in their work.
"Anybody who has been overseas to do mission work understands the risk that is involved, but we go anyway because we want to provide for those people who are in need physically and spiritually," he said.
Staff Writer Alex Branch Contributed to This Report, Which Contains Material From the Associated Press.
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