Posted on 12/22/2004 2:43:32 AM PST by SheLion
Two of the soldiers who were killed during a surprise lunchtime attack Tuesday in Mosul, Iraq, are reportedly from the Maine National Guard’s 133rd Engineer Battalion.
At least 24 people are dead after the dinning hall attack at the U.S. military base in Iraq and another 60-plus are injured, with approximately 10 of the wounded reportedly being Maine guardsmen.
The identities of the casualties and wounded are not known.
Maj. Peter Rogers, director of public affairs for the Maine National Guard, said at 2:45 p.m. Tuesday that his office has not received any official notice of any deaths or injuries.
Gov. John Baldacci was notified Tuesday morning of the attack that occurred at 4 a.m. Eastern Standard Time by Adjunct Gen. John Libby.
Sen. Olympia Snowe issued a statement that indicates Maine troops may have been involved in the attack.
"All our thoughts and prayers go out to the soldiers and families of the 133rd Engineering Battalion and all those troops in harm's way at this difficult time," she said.
The 133rd is one of the state’s two National Guard units stationed in Iraq. The 500-person battalion left Maine last December and is the largest group of Maine troops deployed to combat since World War II.
Soldiers in the 133rd live in Belfast, Gardiner, Lewiston, Norway, Portland, Saco and Skowhegan. The engineering battalion builds, maintains and repairs bridges, command posts, airfields and other construction projects.
The dead include U.S. troops, members of the Iraqi national guard, and Iraqi civilians, officials reported.
The attack, which took place as people ate lunch at Forward Operating Base Marez, is one of the bloodiest attacks of the war against U.S. forces. The camp is located about 20 miles from Mosul, which is in northern Iraq. Pentagon officials said there are about 8,500 U.S. troops in the Mosul area.
Do you have loved ones or friends stationed in Mosul? If you do, please contact bdnnews@bangordailynews.net, Julie Harris at 207.990.8285, or Mike Dowd at 207.990.8238, and update us on their status.
Bangor Daily News is working on this story. Keep tuned to bangordailynews.com for more information.
PORTLAND (AP) — Members of the Maine National Guard's 133rd Engineering Battalion were among casualties from a surprise attack Tuesday in which 24 people were killed and more than 60 wounded at a U.S. military base in Iraq, according to MaineToday.com, a Web site affiliated with the Portland Press Herald.
Two Mainers were reportedly killed and “10 or more” may have been injured, the Web site said. Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz and photographer Gregory Rec were embedded with the unit in Mosul, Iraq, where an explosion occurred while soldiers were having lunch. They were not injured, the newspaper said.
A radical Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the blast that killed U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army, said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul.
Officials could not break down the toll of dead or wounded among the groups. Reports also differed as to the cause of the blast at the camp, which is based outside the predominantly Sunni Muslim city about 220 miles north of Baghdad.
The dead included two soldiers from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion, which had just sat down to eat at Forward Operating Base Merez, according to Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul.
The offices of Maine Gov. John Baldacci and U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins said they were in contact with the Maine Army National Guard and were seeking additional information about the attack.
The 133rd Engineering Battalion, one of two Maine National Guard units in Iraq, was mobilized last December and is made up of 500 soldiers, representing the largest call-up of Maine troops since World War II.
The battalion, whose mission was to maintain and repair everything from airfields and command posts to bridges and supply depots, is due to return to Maine this spring. It has units in Gardiner, Portland, Skowhegan, Belfast, Lewiston, Norway and Saco.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — An explosion ripped through a mess tent at a military base in Mosul where hundreds of U.S. soldiers had just sat down to lunch Tuesday, and officials said 24 people were killed and more than 60 wounded. A radical Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack on a U.S. base in Iraq.
The dead included U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army, said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul.
U.S. Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan B. Collins of Maine were staying in close contact with defense department officials Tuesday about deaths or injuries that may have involved Maine military people. The 133rd National Guard unit is stationed at that base.
The attack came the same day that British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad and described the ongoing violence in Iraq as a "battle between democracy and terror."
Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia, told CNN that the toll was 24 dead. He added that more than 60 were wounded.
Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul said the dead included two soldiers from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion, which had just sat down to eat at Forward Operating Base Merez. He reported 64 were wounded, and civilians may have been among them, he said.
Officials could not break down the toll of dead or wounded among the groups. Reports also differed as to the cause of the blast at the camp, which is based outside the predominantly Sunni Muslim city about 220 miles north of Baghdad.
The base, also known as the al-Ghizlani military camp, is used by both U.S. troops and the interim Iraqi government’s security forces.
Although military officials initially said rockets or mortar rounds struck the camp, Hastings said it was still under investigation.
"We do not know if it was a mortar or a place explosive," he said, describing it as a "single explosion."
The force knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats as a fireball enveloped the top of the tent and shrapnel sprayed into the area, Redmon said.
Amid the screaming and thick smoke in the tent, soldiers turned their tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot, Redmon said.
Scores of troops crammed into concrete bomb shelters, while others wandered around in a daze and collapsed, he said.
"I can’t hear! I can’t hear!" one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.
A huge hole was blown in the roof of the tent, and puddles of blood, lunch trays and overturned tables and chairs covered the floor, Redmon reported.
Near the front entrance, troops tended a soldier with a serious head wound, but within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag, he said. Three more bodies were in the parking lot.
"It is indeed a very, very sad day," Ham said.
It made no difference whether the casualties were soldiers or civilians, Americans or Iraqis, Ham said. "They were all brothers in arms taking care of one another," he said.
Redmon and photographer Dean Hoffmeyer are embedded with the 276th Engineer Battalion, a Richmond, Va., unit that can trace its lineage to the First Virginia Regiment of Volunteers formed in 1652. George Washington and Patrick Henry were two of its early commanders. Henry created the unit’s motto, "Liberty or Death."
The Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on the Internet. It said the attack was a "martyrdom operation" targeting a mess hall in the al-Ghizlani camp.
Ansar al-Sunna is believed to be a fundamentalist group that wants to turn Iraq into an Islamic state like Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime. The Sunni Muslim group claimed responsibility for beheading 12 Nepalese hostages and other recent attacks in Mosul.
Mosul was the scene of the deadliest single incident for U.S. troops in Iraq. On Nov. 15, 2003, two Black Hawk helicopters collided over the city, killing 17 soldiers and injuring five. The crash occurred as the two choppers maneuvered to avoid ground fire from insurgents.
Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, was relatively peaceful in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime last year. But insurgent attacks in the largely Sunni Arab area have increased dramatically in the past year and particularly since the U.S.-led military operation in November to retake the restive city of Fallujah from militants.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of students demonstrated in the center of the city, demanding that U.S. troops cease breaking into homes and mosques there.
Also Tuesday, Iraqi security forces repelled another attack by insurgents trying to seize a police station in the center of the city, the U.S. military said.
On Sunday, insurgents detonated two roadside bombs and a car bomb targeting U.S. forces in Mosul in three separate attacks. Other car bombs Sunday killed 67 people in the Shiite holy cites of Najaf and Karbala.
Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, warned Monday that insurgents are trying to foment sectarian civil war as well as derail the Jan. 30 elections.
During his visit, Blair held talks with Allawi and Iraqi election officials, whom he called heroes for carrying out their work despite attacks. Three members of Iraq’s election commission were dragged from the car and killed this week in Baghdad.
"I said to them that I thought they were the heroes of the new Iraq that’s being created, because here are people who are risking their lives every day to make sure that the people of Iraq get a chance to decide their own destiny," Blair said at a joint news conference with Allawi.
Blair, who has paid a political price for going to war in Iraq, defended the role of Britain’s 8,000 troops by referring to terrorism.
"If we defeat it here, we deal it a blow worldwide," he said. "If Iraq is a stable and democratic country, that is good for the Middle East, and what is good for the Middle East, is actually good for the world, including Britain.
Blair, whose trip to Iraq hadn’t been disclosed for security reasons, urged Iraqis to back next month’s elections.
"Whatever people’s feelings and beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein, and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror," he said.
Allawi said his government was committed to holding the elections as scheduled, despite calls for their postponement owing to the violence.
"We have always expected that the violence would increase as we approach the elections," Allawi said. "We now are on the verge, for the first time in history, of having democracy in action in this country."
Blair flew into the Iraqi capital about 11 a.m. aboard a British military transport aircraft from Jordan. A Royal Air Force Puma helicopter flew from Baghdad airport to the city center, escorted by U.S. Black Hawk helicopters.
It was Blair’s first visit to Baghdad and his third to Iraq since the dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in April 2003. Blair visited British troops stationed around the southern Iraqi city of Basra in mid-2003 and in January. President Bush had paid a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Baghdad at Thanksgiving in 2003.
Blair flew to Basra later Tuesday.
The British leader was a key supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam. His decision to back the U.S. offensive angered many lawmakers in his governing Labour Party and a large portion of the British public.
In other violence Tuesday, a U.S. jet bombed a suspected insurgent target west of Baghdad. Hamdi Al-Alosi, a doctor in a hospital in the city of Hit, said four people were killed and seven injured in the strike. He said the attack damaged several cars and two buildings. A U.S. military spokesman could not confirm the casualties.
Elsewhere, five American soldiers and an Iraqi civilian were wounded when the Humvee they were traveling in was hit by a car bomb near Hawija, 150 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
In Baqouba, a city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, unidentified assailants shot and killed an Iraqi nuclear scientist as he was on his way to work, witnesses said. Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher, a professor at Diyala University, was killed as he drove over a bridge on the Khrisan river. His car swerved and plummeted into the water.
In northern Iraq, insurgents set ablaze a major pipeline used to ship oil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a principal export route for Iraqi oil, an official with the North Oil CO. said. Firefighters were on the scene, 70 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
Insurgents have often targeted Iraq’s oil infrastructure, repeatedly cutting exports and denying the country much-needed reconstruction money.
Prayers said in TX for these fine soldiers and their families.
Yes. Prayers for our fallen soldiers and may the Good Lord give the families strength during this very trying time.
I have a friend whose son is stationed at that base. He really needs prayer.......
There were other fallen soldiers besides the ones from Maine. May God give the family's strenght to get through this very trying time. God bless them all! My heart surely goes out to all of them.
DAMN THE ENEMY. MAY THEY ALL ROT IN HELL!
I did not mean to imply others didn't need prayer.
Prayers for all of our wonderful men and women in uniform.
I have posted a special Wednesday update with your post.
Jake
Both the enemy we know as terrorist and those who hide under the guise of Senator, Governor, Congressman, newsman, etc.
We will be doing a special report on how Maine's congressional delegation voted over the past twelve years on Military cuts, budget, etc.
When Secretary Rumsfeld said "You go to war with the Army you have...." Collins, Snowe, Baldacci, Allen and others should have just shut up. Their roll call votes will make them wish they had.
Both the enemy we know as terrorist and those who hide under the guise of Senator, Governor, Congressman, newsman, etc.
We will be doing a special report on how Maine's congressional delegation voted over the past twelve years on Military cuts, budget, etc.
When Secretary Rumsfeld said "You go to war with the Army you have...." Collins, Snowe, Baldacci, Allen and others should have just shut up. Their roll call votes will make them wish they had.
A Sad time for that small town.
longjack
Oh I sure know that, MrLee! It just hits closer to home when it is our own state.
We have a lot of Maine Freepers and this is an article of interest.
We all get outraged when the coward terrorist hits us on our blind side.
Our hearts and prayers go out to all of our military no matter what state they come from!!
What idiot cowards the terrorist are. Car bombings....suicide bombings..they can never be considered men when they can't stand up and FIGHT like a man. They digust me.
Don't forget to include "What goes around COMES around!"
It is never easy, but this is especially hard during Christmas time. Christmas will never be the same to those that are close to the military member.
Idiots! And then you have the even bigger idiots over here in the body politic and the so called msm, that think they are right.
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