U.S. Apache Shot Down in Baghdad -Two Crew members Killed

Foxnews.com ^ | 4/11/04 | AP

[4everontheRight]

BAGHDAD, Iraq

[teletech]

Can it get any worse?

[4everontheRight]

I hope it doesn't. I pray for the service men or women on board.
Always seems to be something terrible happening on the eleventh of every month!

[teletech]

I hope it doesn't. I pray for the service men or women on board. Always seems to be something terrible happening on the eleventh of every month!

It sure seems so. I too pray for the service men or women on board. Where is our response? WHERE!? I am soooo angry this Easter morning when I SHOULD be joyful.

[faithincowboys]

Yes, most wars in our past have certainly been worse.

[faithincowboys]

This doesn't sound like much of a ceasefire to me.

[Jim Noble]

Can it get any worse?

Yes.

[leadpenny]

That is the same area (on the western edge of this map (just NW of Baghdad International)) where they hit a supply convoy along an expressway.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/baghdad_nima_2003.jpg

[janette]

this is what I posted before:


and why took it so long, to tell us, that he is an American?
Why was his picture digitalized, why could I find the article and his picture in the European News Papers, while in the States on the Internet was written, he is Australian?
The reason might be, that nobody really wants to know or not to learn, that the sh.t h.t the f.n.
I'm sorry but I'm deeply sad and frustrated and I just don't want more people killed!!! This might not be a typical Freeper Statement, but that's the way I feel right now.....depressed and praying for an very soon end of this not so well ongoing "Freedom for Iraq" For me it seems like all the actions where never thought threw to the end, and they thought it might end like after WW2, with white flags, flowers and celebrations! Compare the culture the American Soldiers had to deal with, and what they have to deal with now. There is nothing to compare, as sad as it is. Forget about, creating Democracy in Iraq. As much as I wish, the people could get it, but the demographic situation doesn't give "our western Democracy" any chance. I might be wrong, but that's what triggers my sadness right now. Like we say on my island in Germany: "I can't see land!"

[Fitzcarraldo]

So much for the wonderful cease fire we've been hearing about of late...

[janette]

Even as a German, my neighbor friend left the country like that!!!! It's long ago but not forgotten!!

[Jim Noble]

For me it seems like all the actions where never thought threw to the end, and they thought it might end like after WW2, with white flags, flowers and celebrations!

They wanted the flowers and celebrations without the death and destruction.

No such thing in this world.

[Husker24]

I think that cease fire was just supposed to be for Falluja.

[leadpenny]

AP is also saying A8-64. Should read AH-64
____________________

Middle East - AP

Iraqi Insurgents Shoot Down U.S. Copter
38 minutes ago

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents shot down a U.S. Apache attack helicopter in west Baghdad on Sunday, the military said. The fate of its two crewmembers was unknown.

Heavy fighting was taking place in the area for the third straight day.

"A 1st Cavalry A8-64 Apache helicopter was downed by unknown ground fire west of Baghdad at around 11:05 a.m. The condition of the crew is unknown," the spokesman said.

U.S. troops blocked traffic on the main highway out of Baghdad on the western edge. Large palls of black smoke were seen rising from the nearby area of Abu Ghraib, where at least four helicopters were seen hovering overhead.

In a videotape released Saturday, insurgents who kidnapped an American civilian threatened to kill and mutilate him unless U.S. forces withdraw from the city of Fallujah.

Meanwhile, insurgents holding three Japanese hostage said they would be freed in 24 hours. The captors had threatened to burn the civilians alive unless Japan pulled its troops out of Iraq (news - web sites), a demand Japan refused.

The tape of the American, broadcast on the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera, showed him identifying himself as Thomas Hamill, 43, from Mississippi. In other footage with no audio, he stood in front of an Iraqi flag, his expression calm but wary as his captors announced their threat on his life.

A voice-over read by an Al-Jazeera announcer quoted Hamill as saying he was being treated well and that he works for a "private company that supports the military action."

His wife, Kellie, contacted at their home in Macon, Miss., confirmed that her husband had been captured. She told The Associated Press he works for the Houston-based engineering and construction company Kellogg, Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton, and referred all other comment to the employer.

"I am in good shape," the voice-over quoted Hamill as saying. "They were good to me. They gave me antibiotics. I have no idea what is going on Fallujah. I hear there is a siege and people are living in some sort of prison."

"I hope to return home one day, and I want my family to know that these people are taking care of me, and provide me with food, water and a place to sleep."

Hamill stood in front of the red-white-and-black Iraqi flag, its emblazoned slogan "God is great" prominent above his head. His eyes darted back and forth, but he appeared calm.

His captors warned he would meet a worse fate than four American civilians killed in Fallujah on March 31, their bodies burned and mutilated by a mob, unless U.S. forces end their assault on the city "within 12 hours, starting 6 p.m." — 10 a.m. Saturday, EDT.

"At the end of this period, he will be treated worse than those who were killed and burned in Fallujah," the voice-over said.

Hamill was snatched Friday by gunmen who attacked a fuel convoy he was guarding on the main highway on Baghdad's western edge, the latest in a string of kidnappings in Iraq. Footage released earlier Saturday showed him being whisked away in a car, a gunman in the back seat with him waving an automatic weapon.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt refused to comment Saturday on efforts to free Hamill or other captives, saying it "would not be helpful to discuss" any plans.

Meanwhile, other insurgents who kidnapped two Japanese men and a woman said they would free their captives within 24 hours because of an appeal from Sunni clerics. The kidnappers, identifying themselves as the "Muhahedeen Squadron," announced the decision in a statement received by al-Jazeera.

In an TV interview with the Japanese network Asahi, Shinzo Abe, the No. 2 official in Japan's ruling party, said the release was expected around noon Sunday Japanese time.

But Sunday evening the hostages had still not been released, according to a Japanese Embassy official in Baghdad, Hiroyuki Oura, who would not say whether they were safe or whether negotiations for their release were ongoing.

Earlier, a senior administration official said the release could be delayed.

"It could take a little longer," Deputy Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said as he joined other officials at the prime minister's residence. "We are waiting extremely hopefully."

Videotape delivered to Al-Jazeera, as well as Associated Press Television News, on Thursday showed the three Japanese — two aid workers and a journalist — blindfolded and surrounded by armed, masked men dressed in black.

The three were identified as aid workers Noriaki Imai, 18, and Nahoko Takato, 34; and photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32.

Meanwhile, a group calling itself the "Marytr Ahmed Yassin Brigades" in the city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad and Fallujah, claimed in videotape obtained by APTN to have 30 hostages from a variety of countries.

The footage, also aired on Al-Arabiya TV, showed no images of any hostages, and there was no way to verify the group's claim to be holding "Japanese, Bulgarians, Americans, Israelis, Spanish and Koreans, a total of 30 individuals."

"If the siege of Fallujah is not lifted, we will cut off their heads," a masked man on the videotape said.

He also said his fighters killed four American soldiers and said "we have their bodies." The tape showed an image of a body with bloody khaki pants and covered with a blanket, said to be one of the U.S. soldiers.

Insurgents elsewhere in Iraq have seized a Canadian and an Arab from Jerusalem. A British citizen and two German security officials from their country's embassy in Baghdad are also missing, though it is not known if they have been kidnapped.

[Cap Huff]

I understand how you feel. It is disconcerting and frustrating to read the breaking news stories. However, try to remember that we are not seeing but a tiny fragment of what is really happening. If you have time, you might want to check out these two blog sites which try to put some perspective on the situation. I can’t say that either of them are 100% right, but what they say is plausible given the reports that we are seeing.

http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/


http://denbeste.nu/


If you have time, read through a bit more of Wretchard's blog than the first item or two. There is a wider conflict going on here than simply a few thousand "insurgents."

[Destro]

You want to scare the Shiites and Sunnis straight? Send in the Kurdish Pesh murgas - who are after all Iraq citizens and Muslims and the best light infantry on the planet - and have them clean up. We Americans can't do it for what ever reasons but the Kurds would love to do it.

[janette]

Noble, I hope I understood your message, but I'm still laboring on it......are you connected to this great generation of soldiers somehow?
I (born 51) wish I could meet an old Veteran, to thank him for what he did for my country.
I only heard the best from my parents.

Another thing was, I met a woman on this Freeper chat. She was from New Orleans. She told me, that her father was fighting German soldiers and shooting the "Cathedral Cologne" - world famous landmark)

We both found it strange, that after those years, both daughters correspond in such a nice way, exchanging our father's past and found, that we re going so well which each other

[Broadside Joe]

People suck it up. This is war. We will have good days and we will have bad days as has been stated time and again.

Also, it has also been stated time and again that this will be a dangerous and critical time leading up to the hand over to the IGC.

And yes I get caught up in the moment too. Guilty as charged.

[janette]

when does it end.............?

[janette]

for later....good night Y'all