Heavy smoke billows from a burned US Humvee on a bridge that leads to Baghdad's International Airport. A US convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad.(AFP/Jewel Samad)
Posted on 09/18/2004 7:45:33 AM PDT by TexKat
BAGHDAD, Sept 18 (AFP) - A US convoy was hit by a roadside bomb on the main highway to the airport in southern Baghdad and another convoy targeted by a car bomb moments later, an AFP correspondent and witnesses said.
The double attack took place shortly after 4:00 pm (1200 GMT) and the AFP reporter saw two vehicles on fire, apparently an explosives-laden civilian car and a US Humvee all-terrain vehicle which it rammed.
The ramming took place on a fly-over. Black smoke was billowing in the sky and US troops sealed off the area.
There was no immediate comment from the US military.
Heavy smoke billows from a burned US Humvee on a bridge that leads to Baghdad's International Airport. A US convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad.(AFP/Jewel Samad)
MSNBC's scroll reporting 3 soldiers injured.
Every time I hear of these, my stomach hurts...Nick drived in these supply convoys....
KIKRUK, Iraq (AFP) - At least 18 people were killed in a suicide bombing, capping a week of horrific violence in Iraq as Al-Qaeda-linked militants threatened to kill two American and a British hostage in 48 hours.
More than 400 Iraqis have perished in a wave of bombings and fighting since the start of the month, exacerbating fears over the security situation four months before general elections are scheduled to be held in January.
In the latest attack, a suicide bomber smashed through the security barriers outside the Iraqi national guard headquarters in Kirkuk, in what was the second major attack on the fractured northern oil city in two weeks, police said.
At least 18 people were killed and another 63 people were wounded, hospital officials said.
The vehicle passed through three barriers before it reached the outer gate of the building and exploded, sending shrapnel flying into a crowd of national guard recruits lined up outside.
Ambulances raced to the site and police fired warning shots in the air, in scenes all too familiar in Iraq, where the health ministry reported at least 268 killed in the past week alone and another 820 wounded.
Meanwhile, loyalists of suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened to kill two Americans and a Briton unless Iraqi women prisoners are freed within 48 hours, according to a videotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera television.
The US military said only two Iraqi women, both of them high-security detainees who are believed to have been instrumental in Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes, are being held in the country.
Three blindfolded men were shown sitting in front of gunmen dressed entirely in black, pointing their guns at the pale-faced hostages.
Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene "Jack" Armstrong and British engineer Kenneth Bigley were abducted by gunmen from their Baghdad home on Thursday.
Zarqawi militants have previously claimed to have executed four foreign hostages, an American, a Turk, a South Korean and an Egyptian. Last month, they released two Turks after the men's firm agreed to stop supplying US forces in Iraq.
In further violence, five bodyguards for Mohammed Ahmed Zebari, a senior official at the oil ministry in Mosul, died in a hail of gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire in the northern city, said police. Zebari emerged unscathed from his car.
A child also died when a bomb exploded near his parents' home in the Shiite Muslim city of Hilla, medical sources said.
In Baquba, nine people were wounded by shrapnel when a mortar round struck a crowd of students and parents awaiting exam results outside a school, police and hospital sources said.
Again in the Kirkuk area, gunmen shot dead an Arab Shiite tribal leader.
Sheikh Khadem al-Hani was killed and two of his bodguards wounded when gunmen ambushed them from a black Opel car at 12:20 pm (0820 GMT) in Karadra, 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of Kirkuk, said local police chief Turhan Yusef.
Kirkuk, home to a mix of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, is a volatile place, haunted by the spectre of ethnic violence.
The body of Bassem Mohammed, deputy governor of Al-Anbar province, was found in an open field near Ramadi, the provincial capital, a police officer said. Mohammed had been kidnapped on September 8 by gunmen who stopped his car and wounded his son in the attack.
The murder was the latest in a string of setbacks in Al-Anbar, where the city of Fallujah has become a no-go zone for US troops.
British troops withdrew from the office of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday after commandeering the building in overnight clashes that wounded eight people, officials said.
A Sadr aide had threatened to attack British troops occupying the building.
Despite the rampant unrest, which hardly sells Iraq as a tourism destination, national carrier Iraqi Airways launched its first international flight in 14 years, with a plane arriving in Baghdad from Amman -- albeit without any passengers.
The airline had been grounded since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent UN sanctions imposed on the former regime of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. It has only one functioning plane, a Boeing 737.
With death and destruction part of current daily life in Iraq, a London newspaper reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had been fully briefed on the risks of Iraq sliding into chaos if Saddam Hussein was removed from power.
"There seems to be a larger hole in this than anything," wrote Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in one of several secret documents that were shown to Blair a full year before the US-led invasion he so staunchly backed.
As the deafening silence from Muslims throughout the world continues...
Is Nick home yet Jewels1091? God be with him whether he is home or still in Iraq. Please express our gratitude to Nick for his service to our country and for the freedom of others.
U.S. troops secure the bridge where a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb, in Baghdad September 18, 2004. A suspected suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a U.S. military patrol on Baghdad's airport road on Saturday, wounding three U.S. soldiers, the U.S. military said. Photo by Akram Saleh/Reuters
An Iraqi policeman stands guard next to a destroyed car at the scene of a suicide attack in the northern town of Kirkuk, September 18, 2004. President George W. Bush warned in his Saturday radio address that deadly guerrilla violence in Iraq and Afghanistan could worsen in the coming weeks as the two countries move toward national elections. But days before he was due to speak to the U.N. General Assembly, Bush used his weekly radio address to challenge international leaders to help the United States 'create a safer world' in an effort of common security. (Namir Noor-Eldeen/Reuters)
British hostage Kenneth Bigley. The group of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has threatened to execute Bigley and two Americans unless Iraqi women prisoners are freed within 48 hours.(AFP/FCO/HO)
Iraqi men survey a destroyed house, following a U.S. bombardment in the town of Falluja, early September 18, 2004. U.S. aircraft again attacked targets in Falluja on Friday evening, destroying four houses, residents said. Doctors at Falluja's hospital said at least six people were killed. REUTERS/Mohammed Khodor
British soldiers are deployed near the local office of the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern city of Basra, September 18, 2004. British troops raided an office used by supporters of the rebel Iraqi cleric in Basra on Friday, seizing a large quantity of weapons and explosives, a military spokesman said. REUTERS/Atef Hassan
A British soldier stands under portraits of Moqtaba al-Sadr inside his local office in the southern city of Basra, September 18, 2004. British troops raided an office used by supporters of the rebel Iraqi cleric in the southern city of Basra on Friday, seizing a large quantity of weapons and explosives, a military spokesman said. REUTERS/Atef Hassan
Heavy smoke billows from a burned US Humvee on a bridge that leads to Baghdad's International Airport. An Iraqi was killed and three US soldiers wounded in a car bomb attack on a US convoy.(AFP/Jewel Samad)
Iraqi killed, three US soldiers wounded in Baghdad car bomb attack
BAGHDAD (AFP) - An Iraqi was killed and three US soldiers wounded in a car bomb attack on a US convoy on Baghdad's
"Three Task Force Baghdad Soldiers were wounded when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated at about 3:30 pm (1130 GMT) on the road leading to Baghdad International Airport from central Baghdad," a US military statement said Saturday.
A doctor at Al-Yarmuk hospital said one Iraqi was killed in the blast and another wounded.
An AFP correspondent on the scene saw two vehicles burning on a fly-over, with a charred civilian car crashed into the rear of a blazing US Humvee.
Minutes earlier another US convoy had been hit by a roadside bomb on the same road.
By ABBAS FAYADH, Associated Press Writer
BASRA, Iraq - British troops withdrew on Saturday from radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's main office in the southern city of Basra a day after occupying the building and seizing an arms cache in fighting that killed three and wounded five, the British military and police said.
Explosions and gunfire again echoed across the city Saturday before the soldiers withdrew from the offices in the city center and handed over the keys to local authorities, said British military spokesman Capt. Donald Francis.
"We handed the building ... over to the police," he said. "For the British troops this operation is complete."
Police and national guardsmen immediately took over the building Saturday pending a decision by the provincial governor on whether to give it back to al-Sadr's supporters, Basra police chief Brig. Gen. Mohammed Kadhim al-Ali.
During Friday's raid on the offices, British troops seized a large arms cache after fighting that left three dead and five wounded, including a British soldier, officials said.
The British withdrawal came just hours after al-Sadr's top representative in the city threatened to order al-Mahdi Army militiamen to attack oil fields if British troops did not immediately pull out of the building.
"The al-Mahdi Army is ready to carry out these military operations against British forces, oil fields and oil pipelines in Basra," Sheik Asaad al-Basri said. He also demanded the British return the seized weapons and warned al-Mahdi militiamen were mobilized for a fight.
A British military spokesman said his troops would not return the confiscated weapons, adding that they took control of the offices in self -defense after al-Sadr's official threats.
Al-Sadr, a firebrand cleric who commands widespread support among Iraq's poorer Shiites, led a three-week uprising against U.S. forces last month in the holy city of Najaf that left thousands dead.
Tensions have been mounting recently in Basra between the militia and British troops, who raided a smaller al-Sadr office in the city a couple of days ago.
He is over there until sometime in Dec....
Message from Iraq
The proud warriors of Baker Company wanted to do something to pay tribute To our fallen comrades. So since we are part of the only Marine Infantry Battalion left in Iraq the one way that we could think of doing that is By taking a picture of Baker Company saying the way we feel. It would be awesome if you could find a way to share this with our fellow countrymen. I was wondering if there was any way to get this into your papers to let the world know that "WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN" and are proud to serve our country." Semper Fi 1stSgt Dave Jobe
http://www.republicansabroad-spain.org/newsevents/Irak.html
BTTT
Looks like a follow up strike a few hours after the original might be a good idea. Catch las cucaraches (the cockroaches) when they scurry out after the lights are turned out.
This is an image made Saturday Sept 18, 2004, from a Web site known for its Islamic militant content which apparently shows a British and two American hostages seized in Iraq on Thursday. The men identified themselves as from left, Briton Kenneth Bigley and Americans Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley. The authenticity of the tape could not be verified. The masked speaker dressed in black and standing behind the men read from a statement that militants from Abu Musab al- Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group would kill the men in 48 hours unless the United States and Britain release Iraqi women detained at Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons. (AP Photo via APTN)
Militants Threaten to Kill Iraq Hostages
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An al-Qaida linked group threatened in a videotape Saturday to behead two Americans and a Briton within two days, and insurgents carried out a new string of car bombings, killing at least 20 Iraqis and two American soldiers.
The unrelenting violence has taken 300 lives in the past week.
The videotape was the first word on the fate of Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley since the three construction workers were kidnapped from their Baghdad home two days earlier.
"My job consists of installing and furnishing camps at Taji base," each man said in turn after identifying himself, as all three sat on the floor, blindfolded, slightly bowed but apparently unharmed. At one point, a militant's rifle pointed down at the head of the man who identified himself as Hensley.
The Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the abduction and demanded the release of Iraqi women detained in two American prisons.
The videotape was broadcast by Al-Jazeera shortly before it revealed a fresh kidnapping claim. Another group claimed it had kidnapped 10 workers for an American-Turkish company and threatened to kill them in three days if their firm didn't leave Iraq.
Kidnappings and spectacular bombings have become the signature weapons of insurgents waging a 17-month campaign against U.S. and Iraqi forces, a campaign that has persisted since the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi took power in June.
Nevertheless, Allawi insisted U.S. and Iraqi forces were winning the fight and said progress would be made to calm the violence before crucial elections set for January.
The insurgency is "not getting stronger; it's getting more desperate. We are squeezing out the insurgency," Allawi said, speaking in an interview due to be aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
"We are winning. We will continue to win. And we are going to prevail," he said.
Guerrillas have struck with increasing sophistication in Baghdad, the center of Allawi's authority, and have dealt punishing blows against Iraq's security forces — which are the lynchpin of the U.S.-Iraqi strategy for fighting the insurgency.
On the road to Baghdad's airport Saturday, insurgents set off a car bomb near an overpass as a U.S. convoy passed, wounding three U.S. soldiers. When other American troops moved to the scene, another car bomb exploded, killing two soldiers and wounding eight more.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, a car sped at a crowd of would-be recruits lined up at the offices of the Iraqi National Guard. Guardsmen opened fire on the vehicle and it exploded, leaving the street strewn with bloodied bodies, twisted metal and shards of glass.
At least 19 people were killed and 67 wounded, the Health Ministry said.
It was the third bombing this week targeting the beleaguered security forces, seen as collaborators with the United States and its allies.
The attack occurred as recruits lined up to read the lists of those who had passed the physical fitness test, said Rustem Abdellah, one of the job-seekers who suffered burns to his face and chest.
"I am a graduate from the oil institute," Abdellah, 33, said from his hospital bed. "But there are no jobs available in the oil sector, and I was forced to join the guard force because of the difficult economic situation."
Earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb exploded in a small side street in central Baghdad, killing one Iraqi man and seriously wounding two, police and witnesses said.
The hostage videotape showed the American and British captives aired in part on Al-Jazeera television before it was posted in full on a Web site known for carrying Islamic militant material.
In the tape, a masked militant dressed in black stood behind the men and read from a statement, saying the three were kidnapped because they offer logistic support to American troops. He threatened to kill them unless Iraqi women detained at the American-controlled Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons are freed within 48 hours.
A U.S. military official said only two Iraqi women were in U.S. custody.
The militant accused Allawi of enabling "infidel foreigners" to "violate the honor of Muslim women, humiliate people and suck up the riches of the country" and gave the United States and Britain 48 hours to release Iraqi women detained at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and Camp Bucca at Umm Qasr in the British controlled south.
If the demand is not met, the speaker warned: "By the name of God, these three hostages will get nothing from us except their throats slit and necks chopped, so they will serve as an example."
In Armstrong's home town of Hillsdale, Mich., his brother, Frank Armstrong, said he'd spoken with the FBI (news - web sites) about the abduction but declined to comment further.
"We only know what they're showing on television," said Minnta Davis, Armstrong's cousin. "We just know there are just a lot of prayers for him."
Gulf Supplies and Commercial Services, the employer of the kidnapped Americans and Briton, refused to comment on the tape when contacted by The Associated Press.
Both the prison facilities named in the video are run by American forces. Abu Ghraib is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed sexually humiliating male prisoners. Fears about the safety of women inmates have multiplied since then.
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said coalition forces do not hold any women at Abu Ghraib or at Camp Bucca.
"The only females we hold are two high-value detainees, which are kept with the other approximately 100 high-value detainees in a separate, secure location," Johnson said.
He did not rule out the possibility that women were among an estimated 1,500 prisoners at an Iraqi facility for convicted criminals at Umm Qasr.
Justice Ministry official Nouri Abdul Raheem said a U.S.-Iraqi committee reviewing the cases of detainees had decided to release all women and juveniles within the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, a previously unknown group calling itself the "Salafist Brigades of Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq" claimed it was holding 10 hostages working for an American-Turkish company, according to a tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera on Saturday. The group said the company had to leave Iraq within three days or the hostages would be killed.
The hostages' nationalities nor the name of their company were not given. The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately verified.
More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, and many have been executed. At least five other Westerners are currently being held hostage here, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned of the risks of Iraq sliding into post-war chaos. Straw warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair a year before the US-led invasion that there would be trouble in post-war Iraq.(AFP/Pool/File/David Bebber)
Blair Was Warned of Post-War Iraq Chaos -- Paper
By Kate Holton
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's foreign secretary and senior officials warned Prime Minister Tony Blair a year before invading Iraq that chaos could follow the toppling of Saddam Hussein, a newspaper said Saturday.
The Daily Telegraph said that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sent a letter marked "secret and personal" to Blair in March 2002 warning that no one had prepared for what might happen afterwards.
The Foreign Office declined to comment directly on the report but said in a statement that Iraq was moving toward a democratic future for the first time.
If confirmed, the leak -- which comes amid a sharp escalation in violence in Iraq -- could prove to be damaging to Blair with an election looming in 2005. It also illustrates the depth of concern in his government to joining the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
"There seems to be a larger hole in this (post-war planning) than anything," the Telegraph quoted Straw as saying.
"No one has satisfactorily answered how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better."
Blair defended his position Saturday.
"The idea that we did not have a plan for afterwards is simply not correct," he told a news conference Saturday.
"We did and indeed we have unfolded that plan but there are people in Iraq, outsiders as well as former regime elements, who are determined to stop us. That's why it is all the more important that we carry on until we win it and we will."
The opposition Conservatives -- which backed Blair over the war but later said their support was based on bogus intelligence information from his security services -- said the leak revealed a lack of a comprehensive reconstruction plan.
"The assurances given to us by both the prime minister and Jack Straw that such a plan was in hand were clearly misleading," the Conservatives' foreign affairs spokesman Michael Ancram said Saturday.
The Telegraph also said that senior ministerial advisers warned in a "Secret UK Eyes Only" paper that success would only be achieved if the United States and others committed to "nation building for many years."
"The greater investment of Western forces, the greater our control over Iraq's future, but the greater the cost and the longer we would need to stay," it said.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Blair built his case for war on the basis that Baghdad possessed banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD), although no biological or chemical weapons have been found following Saddam's overthrow.
But the Daily Telegraph said British officials believed President Bush instigated war because he wanted to complete his father's "unfinished business."
"Even the best survey of Iraq's WMD program will not show much advance in recent years," a Foreign Office policy director said.
Bush's father, George Bush, was president during the first Gulf War when a U.S.-led coalition freed Kuwait in 1991 and then drove Saddam's forces back deep into Iraq before withdrawing.
The foreign affairs spokesman for Britain's third political party, the anti-war Liberal Democrat's Menzies Campbell, said, if accurate, the letters provided a "devastating insight" into the political run up to war.
"The British Government has not come clean and been frank with the British people, either about regime change or the long term troop commitment which would result if Saddam was removed," he said.
(Additional reporting by Matt Jones)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb attack in Baghdad on Saturday killed two American soldiers and wounded eight, the U.S. military said in a statement.
The military said the soldiers were on their way to the site of a previous car bomb explosion when they were attacked. Three U.S. vehicles were destroyed in the blast.
Sat Sep 18, 4:18 AM ET
RAMADI, Iraq - Residents found the body of the Anbar province deputy governor, who had been kidnapped earlier this month, hospital officials said Saturday.
Bassem Mohammed's body was found Friday evening near Ramadi General Hospital, said Dr. Abdel Munim Aftan, the facility's director.
Some residents said Mohammed was beheaded, but Aftan would only confirm that he was killed.
Mohammed was seized on Sept. 8 when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle. His son was wounded during the shooting.
Relatives collected Mohammed's body from the hospital on Saturday, Aftan said.
The province is a stronghold of Sunni insurgents who have waged a 17-month campaign against Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim government and its U.S.-led backers
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