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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.