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2 U.S. Sailors Killed in Iraq Boat Attack
The Las Vegas Sun ^ | April 24, 2004 at 20:31:14 PDT | BASSEM MROUE

Posted on 04/24/2004 8:37:58 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -

Suicide attackers detonated explosive-laden boats near oil facilities in the Persian Gulf on Saturday, killing two U.S. Navy sailors in a new tactic against Iraq's vital oil industry. Elsewhere, violence across Iraq killed at least 33 Iraqis and four American soldiers.

It was the first such maritime attack against oil facilities since U.S. troops invaded Iraqi more than a year ago. The blasts resembled attacks in 2000 and 2002 - blamed on al-Qaida - against the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 American sailors and a tanker crewman.

Meanwhile, President Bush held a conference call Saturday with his senior national security and military advisers to discuss the situation in Iraq - particularly restive Fallujah, a senior defense official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the purpose of the teleconference was mainly for Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, to give Bush and others an update on the situation inside the city and the U.S. Marines' readiness to resume offensive operations against thousands of insurgents holed up there.

In the Gulf attack, three dhows, or small boats, drew close to two major oil terminals in Gulf waters about 100 miles from Iraq's main port, Umm Qasr, and exploded when coalition craft tried to intercept them. A U.S. Navy craft was flipped by the blast, killing the American sailors and injuring five others, the U.S. military said.

Initial reports said there was no damage to the terminals, the military said, and Iraq's main southern oil outlet, Umm Qasr, remained open, a British spokesman said.

The Gulf bombings came on a day of multiple attacks in Iraq: The deadliest was a roadside bomb that hit a bus south of Baghdad, killing at least 13 Iraqis. A mortar barrage struck a crowded market in the capital's biggest Shiite neighborhood, Sadr City, killing at least seven.

The U.S. soldiers were killed around dawn, when two rockets were fired from a truck and slammed into the base in Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. U.S. helicopter gunships then destroyed the truck. Seven soldiers were wounded, three of them critically, the military said.

Also, an Army reservist missing in Iraq since a convoy attack April 9 was confirmed dead. The remains of Sgt. Elmer Krause, 40, were found Friday, according to a statement Saturday from the Department of Defense. It gave no other details. Another soldier and a U.S. contract worker abducted in the same attack remain unaccounted for.

The latest deaths, along with the combat death of a Marine announced Saturday, brought to 109 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April. The military also announced the death of a soldier in a non-combat incident, bringing to 718 the number servicemembers who have died in the country.

Anywhere from 900 to 1,200 Iraqis have been killed in April - depending on various reports of the death toll from Fallujah.

British military spokesman Hisham H. Halawi said the port at Umm Qasr, the chief southern outlet for Iraqi oil, remained open after the boat attacks.

The first blast came when a dhow was sighted near the Khawr al-Amaya oil terminal, the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet said. When an interception team tried to board, the dhow exploded, flipping the U.S. Navy craft.

About 20 minutes later, two more dhows were spotted near the al-Basra oil terminal. They, too, exploded when security teams approached, but there were no casualties among the security teams, the 5th Fleet said.

Halawi said the second dhows were trying to pull close to two tankers at the al-Basra terminal, also known as ABOT.

Insurgents in Iraq have frequently attacked oil pipelines, repeatedly shutting down exports from northern oil fields through Turkey. Southern pipelines, running through relatively more peaceable Shiite regions, have seen fewer attacks.

Iraq is currently producing about 2 million barrels of oil a day, according to the Middle East Economic Survey.

The oil attacks came three days after near simultaneous suicide car bombings in the southern Iraqi city of Basra - 30 miles north of Umm Qasr - that killed 74 people.

The violence came as U.S. commanders repeated warnings that they may soon launch a new assault on the besieged city of Fallujah, saying guerrillas had not abided by a call to surrender heavy weapons.

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, traveled to the Marine base outside Fallujah for consultations Saturday, while Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters: "Should there not be a good faith effort demonstrated by the belligerents inside Fallujah, the coalition is prepared to act."

In Saturday's bloodiest incident, a bomb exploded on a main road as a bus passed near Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad. The back of the bus was shredded and seats crumpled. At least 13 people - including a four-year-old boy - were killed and 17 wounded, said Wasan Nasser, a doctor at Iskan Hospital in neighboring Iskandariyah.

In Sadr City, the capital's sprawling Shiite slum, angry residents vented anger at Iraq's U.S. occupiers after the mortar attacks, which followed an early morning clash in the neighborhood between U.S. troops and militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.

Some of the mortar shells in Saturday's barrage against Sadr City, which killed at least seven people, hit two miles from any U.S. position - suggesting they may have deliberately targeted civilians in the Shiite neighborhood.

Three shells pounded into the neighborhood's main souk, known as the Chicken Market, just as morning crowds were gathering to shop. Human flesh could be seen among scattered market stalls and burned-out cars. Craters were blasted out of the asphalt.

At least six Iraqis were killed and 38 wounded, said Yassin Abdel-Qader, a doctor in the area's Health Directorate. The Baghdad slum is home to more than 1 million people.

Hours later, a projectile struck a two-story house, smashing through its roof and down into the ground floor, tearing a woman to pieces as she took an afternoon nap and wounding her daughter. At least two more landed later in the afternoon, hitting a main street on the edge of Sadr City, breaking windows but causing no casualties.

Before the mortar fire, U.S. troops launched a pre-dawn raid into Sadr City, pursuing al-Sadr militiamen. They caught in a gunbattle in which two Iraqis were killed, according to U.S. Maj. Phil Smith.

During the fighting, a shell pierced the wall of a house, exploding in a bedroom and severely burning a 9-year-old girl and two teenage girls as they slept.

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt suggested former members of Saddam Hussein's security services were to blame.

"It was clearly an attack on civilians. There was no U.S. military at that spot," said Lt. Col. James Hutton of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, which responded to the attack and helped treat the wounded.

Still, angry Shiites blamed the Americans for the assault. After one of the afternoon strikes, residents chanted, "Long live al-Sadr. America and the Governing Council are infidels."

In other violence Saturday:

-An Iraqi woman working as a U.S. military translator was shot and killed with her husband as they drove to a U.S. base, a hospital official said.

-A roadside bomb destroyed a car carrying Iraqis near a U.S. base in the northern city of Tikrit, hometown of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and a center for anti-U.S. resistance. Four Iraqis - two police and two civilians - were killed and 16 wounded, the U.S. military said.

-Polish troops clashed overnight with Shiite militiamen in the city of Karbala, killing five, a spokesman for the multinational peacekeeping force in south-central Iraq said Saturday.

---


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: fallen; iraq; iraqioil; koran; muslims; sailors; ummqasr; usn
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To: forYourChildrenVote4Bush
It's sad but we are all a little naive and are going to have to look at things differently. EX; If you see a purse left in a basket, say at Walmarts are you going to take it to a clerk or think this might be a bomb.
21 posted on 04/24/2004 10:30:53 PM PDT by CindyDawg
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To: CindyDawg
No, No you can’t be paranoid; you can’t start living this way. It’s not like you’re living in a war zone, It hasn’t gotten to this point yet.
22 posted on 04/24/2004 10:42:21 PM PDT by forYourChildrenVote4Bush (No time for wobbly knees.)
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To: forYourChildrenVote4Bush
I would pick the purse up too. That's what I was talking about.
23 posted on 04/24/2004 11:10:11 PM PDT by CindyDawg
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
They are finally starting to target the oil facilities successfully. I am surprised they have not attempted more attacks on the oil.
24 posted on 04/25/2004 12:50:19 AM PDT by optik_b (follow the money)
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To: CindyDawg
After a purse explodes, I would expect no one would be picking up strange purses anymore. After countless ambushes, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, car bombs, truck bombs, now boat bombs, why are U.S. forces allowing anyone/anything they don't know get close enough to harm them? It's not as if they are stupid. They are hadcuffed by rules imposed by beurocrats who find deaths of Americans easier to deal with than bad press if Iraqis die.
25 posted on 04/25/2004 1:18:46 AM PDT by jaykay (Government: half parasitic, half incompetent.)
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To: CindyDawg
I don't understand why they boarded it to begin with.

They board the dhows. Because, it's their job to board and identify as friend or foe.

There are thousands and thousands of dhows in the Persian Gulf. Commerce, such as cargo transportation and seafood harvest is conducted from these vessels. Inadvertently, an unauthorized dhow may enter a security zone. (Historical fishing grounds of a family fishing business.)

God Bless our troops,

OLA

Dhow

26 posted on 04/25/2004 2:12:41 AM PDT by OneLoyalAmerican (A Fireman in the NAVY was promoted more times than Lieutanant junior grade John F'n Kerry.)
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To: OneLoyalAmerican
Our Canadian partners boarding a dhow.


27 posted on 04/25/2004 2:32:37 AM PDT by OneLoyalAmerican (A Fireman in the NAVY was promoted more times than Lieutanant junior grade John F'n Kerry.)
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To: OneLoyalAmerican
So they are finally starting to target are navy. We better be readdy to shot, then answers quastions later.
28 posted on 04/25/2004 2:39:20 AM PDT by Tropicalwatcher
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To: Tropicalwatcher
So they are finally starting to target are navy. We better be readdy to shot, then answers quastions later.

Sorry, but I don't agree.

This method of attack was anticipated for years. That's why we board in a stand-off area.

In the post-USS Cole era, no one conducts a boarding in the manner depicted in my previous post.

OLA

29 posted on 04/25/2004 2:56:40 AM PDT by OneLoyalAmerican (A Fireman in the NAVY was promoted more times than Lieutanant junior grade John F'n Kerry.)
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To: CindyDawg
I agree. They should have blown the suckers out of the water immediately.

Again, we are letting our concern for "humanitarian" sensitivities overrule what should be our primary concerns - protecting our troops and protecting our interests.
30 posted on 04/25/2004 5:20:44 AM PDT by ZULU
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To: ZULU
It seems at least one of the three was blown out of the water, see Iraqi Oil Terminal Closed After Attack
31 posted on 04/25/2004 7:59:28 AM PDT by OneLoyalAmerican (A Fireman in the NAVY was promoted more times than Lieutenant junior grade John F'n Kerry.)
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To: OneLoyalAmerican
Great picture. Thanks.
32 posted on 04/25/2004 11:15:15 AM PDT by miltonim (Fight those who do not believe in Allah. - Koran, Surah IX: 29, "Repentance.")
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To: CindyDawg

First of all there is rules of ingagement and that is why they didn't just blow them out of the water to begin with....With that said my name is Shirley Perez-Daily and I am the Proud wife of the Coxswain that was in charge of that boarding group who was blown out of the water. The USS Firebolt PC10 and their sister PC that was out there on that fateful day, was in charge of protecting the zone around the oil terminal against hostile elements. THEY WERE DOING THEIR JOB! Boarding crews are designed to check if the other boat is hostile or not, without putting the larger ship at risk. They never boarded that particular ship that day. The boarding team deployed their RHIB into the water and approached the fishing boat (it was not a dhow as recorded, dhows are wooden ships) and advised the person who was driving the boat toward the oil terminal that they were enter a no entry zone and needed to turn around. They also advised that if he didn't turn around they would seize control of his fishing boat. They guy in the fishing boat turned around and left the no entry zone. The boarding team directed their attention to their sister PC to assist with the other two fishing boats headed toward the other oil terminal. They noticed that the fishing boat they had just turned around had begun to turn back toward the oil terminal, so they approached and got right along side (my husband said they were so close they could touch the fishing boat...and they had to be that close), they advised the man driving the fishing boat that he was to turn off the boat because they were boarding and taking over the fishing boat. Before they could finish advising the man, the detonated his explosives that were meant for the oil terminal. The explosion did not flip the RHIB over...it blew the RHIB along with it's boarding team clean into the air. My husband along with the other members of that boarding team were doing their job...boardings are routine. Three men gave the ultimate sacrifice by doing their job and protecting the no entry zone to the oil terminal...their lives. If you care to visit my husbands website to find out more information regarding the oil terminal explosion and the men who gave their lives protecting it...I have included the link below...

http://members.cavtel.net/alandaily/page9.htm

This is also a link to the page that contains the wounds my husband sustained from the explosion...I'm happy to say he healed very well and is still active duty...I contribute his speedy recovery to his good health prior to the attack...

http://members.cavtel.net/alandaily/page8.htm

God Bless and Please Never Forget Our Armed Force Hero's...Deceased or Living!

Shirley Perez-Daily
pr_honey0278@yahoo.com


33 posted on 03/24/2005 11:46:26 PM PST by sperezdaily
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