More Innocent Souls Are Lost.....
- From: Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 23 Apr 2007 21:36:02 -0700
Well somebody had a really bad day today....
And the War seems to be going nowhere fast with the body count
climbing....
Now I would expect some pro gun no brain fanatic to start ranting
about that in a no bomb zone if we gave everybody bombs that our
soldiers would be safe.....
Logic like that gets people killed...
TMT
Car bomb kills 9 U.S. soldiers in Iraq By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press
Writer
A suicide car bomb struck a patrol base northeast of Baghdad on
Monday, killing nine U.S. soldiers and wounding 20 in the single
deadliest attack on American ground forces in more than a year, the
military said.
An Iraqi civilian also was wounded in the attack on Task Force
Lightning soldiers in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been
the site of fierce fighting involving U.S. and Iraqi troops, Sunni
insurgents and Shiite militias.
At least 48 Iraqis were killed in seven other bombings, violence that
has persisted despite a nearly 10-week-old U.S.-Iraqi security
crackdown aimed at pacifying Baghdad.
Of the 20 wounded in the attack on the patrol base, 15 soldiers were
treated and returned to duty while five others and the Iraqi were
evacuated to a medical facility for further care, the military said.
Identities were not released pending notification of relatives.
It was the second bold attack against a U.S. base north of Baghdad in
just over two months and was notable for its use of a suicide car
bomber.
On Feb. 19, insurgents struck a U.S. combat post in Tarmiyah, about 30
miles north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding 17 in what
the military called a "coordinated attack." It began with a suicide
car bombing followed by gunfire on soldiers pinned down in a former
Iraqi police station where fuel storage tanks were set ablaze by the
blast.
Militants have mostly used hit-and-run ambushes, roadside bombs or
mortars on U.S. troops and stayed away from direct assaults on
fortified military compounds to avoid U.S. firepower.
American troops are facing increasing danger as they step up their
presence in the Baghdad area as part of the security crackdown to
which President Bush has committed an extra 30,000 troops.
Sunni militants are believed to have withdrawn to surrounding areas
such as Diyala province where they have safe haven. The U.S. command
also deployed an extra 700 soldiers to the area last month.
The deaths raised to 85 the number of U.S. service members who died
have in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month for American
troops since December, when 112 died.
It was the single deadliest attack on ground forces since Dec. 1,
2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 on a foot
patrol near Fallujah.
Twelve soldiers died when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Diyala on
Jan. 20. The military said it might have been shot down but the
investigation is still ongoing.
A U.S. soldier also was killed Monday in a roadside bombing in
Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, the military said in an
earlier statement. A British soldier was shot to death while on patrol
in the southern city of Basra, officials said.
At least 70 Iraqis were killed or found dead Monday, including the 48
who died in seven bombings. A suicide car bombing struck a police
station in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, killing 10 people
and wounding 23.
With the U.S. casualty toll mounting, Democratic leaders in Washington
agreed Monday on legislation that requires the first American combat
troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete
pullout six months later. Bush has promised to veto any such measure
as the legislative confrontation intensifies.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, signaled that they might reconsider putting
a three-mile concrete barrier around a Sunni Arab neighborhood in
Baghdad after Iraq's struggling prime minister came under pressure
from Sunnis and ordered the project halted.
Plans for the separation barrier to protect the Azamiyah neighborhood
were in doubt after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki criticized the idea
of creating "gated communities" to separate Baghdad's sectarian
neighborhoods.
Speaking during a tour of Sunni-led Arab countries, the Shiite Muslim
prime minister said he did not want the 12-foot-high wall to be seen
as dividing the capital's sects.
Iraq's Sunni Arab minority dominated during Saddam Hussein's reign,
and its members remain deeply distrustful of Shiite intentions and
provide the backbone of the Iraqi insurgency.
Shiite militias, in turn, have been attacking Sunni neighborhoods in
retaliation for insurgent attacks on their own communities.
Azamiyah's Sunni residents have been the target of frequent mortar
attacks by Shiite militants, but hundreds of people in the district
took to the streets to protest against the wall, saying it would make
their neighborhood "a big prison."
The new American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, defended the
barrier plan Monday, saying it was an effort to protect the Sunni
community from surrounding Shiite areas, not to segregate it.
Holding his first news conference since taking his post, Crocker said
security measures were implemented in coordination with the Iraqi
government.
"Obviously, we will respect the wishes of the government and the prime
minister," he said, although he did not say construction would halt.
Al-Maliki said he would not allow "a separation wall," but then he
said that the subject would be discussed and that he would not rule
out all barriers, such as barbed wire.
Iraq's chief military spokesman indicated that some type of barrier
would go up, saying al-Maliki was responding to exaggerated reports
about the wall.
"We will continue to construct the security barriers in the Azamiyah
neighborhood. This is a technical issue," Brig. Gen. Qassim al-
Moussawi said at a joint news conference with a U.S. military
spokesman, Rear Adm. Mark Fox. "Setting up barriers is one thing and
building barriers is another. These are moveable barriers that can be
removed."
Al-Moussawi noted that similar walls made of sections of concrete are
in place elsewhere in Baghdad, including in other residential
neighborhoods.
The confusion over the barrier reflected a lack of coordination
between al-Maliki's government and the U.S. military even as they have
touted their partnership the nearly 10-week-old security operation in
Baghdad.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, said there may
have been miscommunication.
"Discussions on a local level may not have been conveyed to the
highest levels of the Iraqi government," Garver said. "Whether the
prime minister saw this plan or not, I don't know. With him in Cairo,
it complicates things."
Al-Maliki's comments came as he faces heavy pressure to bring Sunnis
into the political process and dampen support for the insurgency amid
unrelenting violence despite the crackdown in the capital.
He had assured Washington that he would not allow political
considerations to influence tactical decisions, but his criticism of
the wall followed a wave of outrage from Azamiyah's residents and
Sunni leaders after the U.S. military announced its plan last week.
Protesters in Azamiyah carried banners Monday with slogans such as "No
to the sectarian wall" and "Azamiyah children want to see Baghdad
without walls" as they marched from a mosque to a former police
station that now houses an outpost of U.S. soldiers.
"The real reason behind this wall is to increase peoples' sufferings
and complicate their daily lives," said one protester, engineer Khalil
al-Obaidi.
Sheikh Sameer al-Sumaidaie, a preacher at the mosque where the protest
started, said: "We had a united country before the war, but now it is
being divided into fragments."
Al-Maliki has thwarted U.S. plans in the past. In October, U.S. troops
pulled down roadblocks around Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City on
his order. At the time, the prime minister was said to have feared
violence from the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that is headquartered
in Sadr City and loyal to the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Maliki is under intense pressure from the Bush administration to
show progress with security and national reconciliation efforts as the
war grows increasingly unpopular in the United States.
.
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