Posted on 07/23/2004 8:12:45 AM PDT by dead
A van carrying Iraqi civilians collided with a US tank near Baghdad, killing nine people and injuring 10 others, the US military said yesterday.
The accident occurred about 10pm on Thursday night (0400 AEST Friday), said Specialist Justin McCue, a press official of the US-led military coalition.
"The van was attempting to pass another vehicle when it collided with the tank," McCue said. "All the injured were taken to a medical facility."
There were no US or coalition casualties, McCue said. He had no other details.
There were slightly different accounts of the crash.
Iraqi police Captain Adnan Salih said nine people were killed and 18 injured in the tank collision with a bus in Tarmiyah, 50km north of Baghdad.
Salih said the fatalities included four men, four women and one child - all of whom had been attending a wedding party in Tarmiyah.
Footage taken by Associated Press Television News showed the twisted wreckage of a minibus and several bodies of accident victims covered by blankets. A small child's orange dress was found amid the wreckage and pools of blood covered the road.
US forces and Iraqi police surrounded the crash site.
An unidentified eyewitness, who said he was a passenger on the bus, told APTN the vehicle was carrying 12 people from the same family when the tank crashed into it.
"They were in a wedding party on their way from Tarmiyah to Baghdad ... (when) an American armoured vehicle hit them and left," the man said.
AP
I was wondering the same thing, myself. This is, what, four or five in the past few months?
Is 'wedding party' a euphemism for 'Al-Queda meeting'?
Unbelievable spin... the van was passing another vehicle when it ran into a tank proceeding on its own side of the road, and then by the end of the story it's the American tank's fault.
Liberal incoherence, as usual.
I wonder if they even noticed that they'd ran over anything... :)
Got to hate that. You're passing an 18 wheel semi on a two-lane over the crest of a hill at 90 and swerving to avoid a line of chickens walking along the double yellow on the way to the torture house and suddenly slam into a heavy tank and the crew refuses to stop and get out and walk into the ambush.
If the accident had happened in Philadelphia, there would be 80 to 100 "injured victims" all claiming to have been in that van!
Quite so. I remember passing by a tank military convoy in Eastern France during the mid-1980s. There was some big Franco-German military exercise planned (within NATO I think).
The tanks were occupying one side of the road, Leopard-1 and AMX-30s, and a British family in a Range-Rover crashed into the leading tank. It was terrible, the Range was piled into the front armor like a crushed Coke can.
rotflol
"another wedding"
That's what I was thinking.
That's what you get for driving sober.
Don't you just love these unidentified eye witnesses.
Reporters can make up any story they want and say it came from an unidentified eye witness.
Question is, were they so drunk that they couldn't see a tank coming their way?
Hey, I know of an ambulance chaser who could file a big lawsuit. Let me see if I can get J F**ng Kerry's hands off his butt long enough to take the case.
Arabs in the Middle East have the highest rate of 1st cousin marriage anywhere. In most parts of Saudi Arabia, 60% of marriages are to 1st cousins. In Iraq it was about 30% IIRC. And while geneticists have shown that the absolute rate of defects only increases to 3%, that's still double what it would normally be. That 3% also has had a lot of time to compound. Now, I'm not eugenics proponent but I think some of this explains why the Middle East is as screwed-up as it is.
For some reason, I rather believe the alternative report of an unsafe passing maneuver by the minivan driver.
These maggots don't miss an opportunity to slam the US, do they.
Too Bad, So saad. weddings in Iraq are becoming extremely unheatlthy these days. Bush/Cheney 2004
To answer your Question:
Yes, the Abrams is equipped with headlights and rear break lights.
19 people in a van. I wonder how many clowns you could pack in there.
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