Gość: kuk
IP: 207.7.198.*
22.12.04, 17:42
nie slyszy sie wiecej slow "tata'mama"
U.S. Sweeps Through Mosul After Attack
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The U.S. military deployed armored vehicles in Mosul and
infantrymen swept through the northern city Wednesday, a day after an
insurgent strike on a nearby base killed 22 people and injured 72 in one of
the deadliest attacks on American troops since the war began.
The military was investigating whether a bomb was planted at the mess tent in
Forward Operating Base Marez, where the blast sprayed shrapnel as U.S.
soldiers sat down to lunch Tuesday. Initial reports said a 122 mm rocket
ripped through the tent's ceiling.
HALLIBURTON CO
NYS:HAL
Updated: 11:19 ET
39.16 -0.82
Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, commander of the multinational force in Iraq, told CNN
that a planted was ``a possibility.''
A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which claimed
responsibility for the attack, said it was a ``martyrdom operation'' - a
reference to a suicide bomber.
Metz told CNN that experts had flown from Baghdad to Mosul to ``do a very
detailed explosive forensics investigation and they will be able to tell us
the type of weapon (and) the size of weapon'' that was used.
He also said the military was looking at better ways of protecting dining
areas, gyms and other places where troops gather in large numbers on bases.
Mortar attacks on U.S. bases, particularly on the huge white tents that serve
as dining halls, have been frequent in Iraq for more than a year. Bill Nemitz,
a columnist with the Portland (Maine) Press Herald who was embedded with the
troops in Mosul, told CNN that he heard ``a lot of discussion'' among troops
about the vulnerability of the tent.
Mosul's streets were deserted Wednesday as hundreds of troops spread out
across several neighborhoods backed up by Bradley fighting vehicles and
armored Humvees. An Associated Press reporter in Mosul saw helicopter gunships
clattering overhead and jets flying high above the city, located 225 miles
north of Baghdad.
Metz told CNN that in previous attacks on Marez were ``rather random.''
``The enemy cannot stay in one place long to attack us, therefore his accuracy
is pretty poor,'' Metz said.
Early Wednesday, U.S. troops blocked Mosul's five bridges over the Tigris
River that link the western and eastern sectors of the city. The AP reporter
saw U.S. soldiers conducting sweeps through the eastern neighborhoods of
Muthanna, Wahda and Hadabaa.
In a sign of the of the simmering tensions, most schools in the city were
closed and few cars and people could be seen on the streets, although a formal
curfew was not declared. Even traffic policemen were not at major
intersections as usual.
The dead included 18 Americans - 14 service members and four U.S. civilian
contractors - and four Iraqis, the U.S. military command in Baghdad said
Wednesday. Of the 72 wounded, 51 are U.S. military personnel and the remainder
are American civilians, Iraqi troops, and other foreigners.
Defense contractor Halliburton Co. said four of its employees and three
subcontractors were killed, but it did not provide names or nationalities, and
the U.S. military did not provide a further breakdown of the identities of the
dead.
At the military hospital near Mosul airfield, doctors and orderlies treated
dozens of soldiers for burns, shrapnel wounds and damage to their eyes.
``This is the worst we have seen in the 11 months since we have been here,''
said Master Sgt. David Scott, chief ward master for the hospital.
Sgt. Kyle Wright of Richlands, Va., recovering from wounds to his leg and
back, said he was in the tent about to take a bite of chocolate cake when he
was blown into the air.
``When I came to, I looked up and saw open sky,'' said Wright, a member of the
276th Engineer Battalion.
It was the latest in a week of deadly strikes across Iraq that highlighted the
growing power of the insurgents in the run-up to the Jan. 30 national elections.
``We are not going to be intimidated. We will help the Iraqi people and their
security forces not to be intimidated and we are pushing on toward the
elections in January,'' Metz said.
Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, was relatively peaceful in the immediate
aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last year. But rebel attacks
in the largely Sunni area have increased dramatically in the past year -
particularly since the U.S.-led military offensive in November to retake
Fallujah from the militants.
There was little apparent sympathy for the dead Americans on Mosul streets
Wednesday.
``In fact, what has happened in Mosul yesterday is something expected,'' said
Sattar Jabbar. ``When occupiers come to any country (they) find resistance.
And this is within Iraqi resistance.''
``I prefer that American troops leave the country and go out of cities so that
Iraq will be safer and we run its affairs,'' Jamal Mahmoud, a trade union
official. ``I wish that 2,000 U.S. soldiers were killed, not 20.''
The Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which claimed the responsibility for Sunday's blast,
is believed to be a fundamentalist group that wants to turn Iraq into an
Islamic state like Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. The Sunni group
claimed responsibility for the execution of 12 Nepalese hostages and other
recent attacks in Mosul.
In other developments Wednesday:
Poland's Prime Minister Marek Belka and Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski
toured Camp Echo in Diwaniyah, the new headquarters for the Polish-led
international security force in central Iraq, for a Christmas visit to some
2,400 Polish troops stationed in Iraq.
Four Iraqi civilians from one family were killed and three others were injured
when U.S. soldiers opened fire on their car in the Abu Ghraib area just west
of Baghdad, said Akram Al-Zaobaie, a doctor in the local hospital.
The seven were traveling in a taxi when a roadside bomb hit an American
military convoy, prompting fire from the U.S. soldiers, he said.
Iraqi security forces stormed a house in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf
in a shootout that killed one guerrilla and a policeman. The raid came after
54 people were killed and 142 injured in a car bomb explosion Sunday in
Najaf's city center.
Gunmen shot dead an Iraqi police officer in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad,
police Sgt. Hussein Hassan said. The assailants stole the victim's pistol
before fleeing.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday its experts
visited the devastated town of Fallujah to assess the humanitarian situation
there ahead of a planned return of some 250,000 civilians that is to start
this week.
Water purification plants in Fallujah remain dysfunctional after the U.S.-led
offensive that left the city in ruins, and returning displaced families will
have to depend on mobile tanks, said Ahmed Rawi, an ICRC spokesman.
12/22/04 09:08
