tuckerhat
04-24-2004, 06:21 PM
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118054,00.html
Thought I saw this earlier here but couldn't find the thread
Two U.S. Sailors Killed in Iraq
Saturday, April 24, 2004
BAGHDAD — Two U.S. sailors were killed and four were wounded Saturday in apparent homicide boat bombings near an oil platform off Iraq's Persian Gulf coast.
Three boats exploded near two Iraqi oil terminals in the first known maritime attack on Iraqi oil facilities since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Insurgents have attacked pipelines in the north and south, at times disrupting Iraq's vital oil exports.
The two sailors were killed when they tried to intercept a small boat sighted near the Khawr al-Amaya oil terminal in the north of the Gulf, the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said in a press release.
As the eight-member boarding team approached the boat, it exploded, flipping the team's craft and throwing the crew into the water.
Soon afterward, two more boats were seen approaching the al-Basra terminal. Security forces from the terminals went to intercept the boats, which then exploded, the statement said.
Violence was felt in several other parts of Iraq, too, on the day after the U.S. military warned it could move into the rebel stronghold Fallujah and a senior Muslim cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr (search), vowed homicide attacks should U.S. forces attack in his city of Najaf.
Volleys of rockets struck the capital's crowded Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Sadr City (search) on Saturday, hitting a busy market, smashing into a home and killing at least seven Iraqis. Outside Baghdad, insurgents rocketed a U.S. military base, killing four soldiers.
Besides the deaths in the Sadr City rocket strikes, at least 26 Iraqis were reported killed in a bombing at Tikrit, clashes between Polish troops and Shiite militiamen in Karbala (search), U.S. raids overnight in Sadr City, and a roadside bombing south of Baghdad.
Four American solders were killed around dawn when two rockets fired from a truck hit the U.S. base at Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, Air Force Lt. Col. Sam Hudspath said. U.S. helicopter gunships then destroyed the truck, the military said.
Six soldiers were wounded in the attack, three of them critically, the military said.
The deaths, along with the combat death of a Marine announced Saturday, brought to 107 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April. Since the U.S.-led invasion last year, 715 American military personnel have died in Iraq.
The pre-dawn fighting in Sadr City (search), in eastern Baghdad, came when U.S. troops sought to capture suspected Shiite militiamen, sparking a battle that the military said killed one or two Iraqis. During the fighting, three Iraqi girls were badly burned when a shell exploded in their bedroom where they slept.
Hours later, a volley of three rockets was fired into Sadr City, a slum of more than 1 million people. One hit the neighborhood's crowded souk, known as Chicken Market, where hundreds had gathered for morning shopping. Human flesh could be seen among scattered merchandise and burned cars.
At least six Iraqis were killed and 38 wounded, said Yassin Abdel-Qader, a doctor with the area's Health Directorate.
A few hours later, a rocket struck a two-story house in Sadr City, smashing through the roof and down to the ground floor, killing a woman as she took an afternoon nap and wounding her daughter. At least two more rockets exploded later on a main street on the edge of Sadr City, breaking windows but causing no casualties.
It was not immediately known who was behind the rocket assault on the predominantly Shiite district, which is a stronghold of the al-Mahdi Army militia of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The neighborhood is named for al-Sadr's father, a cleric who was murdered by Saddam Hussein's agents.
U.S. commanders have blamed Sunni Muslim insurgents for military-style rocket attacks on U.S. bases in the past. But people in the neighborhood blamed the Americans for Saturday's rocket barrages, which came after the overnight clash.
After the rocket strike, residents chanted: "Long live al-Sadr! America and the Governing Council are infidels!"
In other violence Saturday:
— A roadside bomb exploded near a bus in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 13 Iraqis, including at least one child, and wounding 17 people, a hospital official said. The bomb was planted in the ground and went off as a bus carrying 21 people was passing, said police officer Ali Mahmoud.
— Polish troops clashed overnight with Shiite militiamen in the city of Karbala, killing five, a spokesman for the multinational peacekeeping force in south-central Iraq said. A day earlier, an attack on Bulgarian troops in the city killed one soldier.
— A roadside bomb destroyed a car carrying Iraqis near a U.S. base on a downtown street in the northern city of Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam and a center for anti-U.S. resistance. Four Iraqis — two policemen and two civilians — were killed and 16 people were wounded, the U.S. military said.
— An Iraqi woman working as a translator for the U.S. military and her husband were fatally shot as they drove to a U.S. base, a hospital official said.
— In Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a U.S. military convoy, setting off shooting that caused civilian casualties, witnesses said. U.S. helicopters were seen taking American casualties away, the witnesses said. There was no immediate comment from the military.
— Gunmen attacked a U.S. convoy near the city of Kut, and an armored vehicle was reported burned. Witnesses also said they saw American casualties.
The Pentagon announced Friday that 595 U.S. soldiers have been wounded in the past two weeks, raising the total number of wounded in combat to 3,864 since the start of the conflict.
Also on Friday, the United Nations' envoy said the 25 members of Iraq's U.S.-picked Governing Council should be excluded from a planned caretaker government that is supposed to take nominal sovereignty from the U.S.-led occupation on June 30.
While a group of "technocrats" runs the interim government, the council members should spend the next nine months campaigning for elections due by the end of January, said the envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi.
Washington has thrown its backing behind Brahimi's proposal, suggesting the United States is prepared to allow the removal of Iraqis it had put forward to run the country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Thought I saw this earlier here but couldn't find the thread
Two U.S. Sailors Killed in Iraq
Saturday, April 24, 2004
BAGHDAD — Two U.S. sailors were killed and four were wounded Saturday in apparent homicide boat bombings near an oil platform off Iraq's Persian Gulf coast.
Three boats exploded near two Iraqi oil terminals in the first known maritime attack on Iraqi oil facilities since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Insurgents have attacked pipelines in the north and south, at times disrupting Iraq's vital oil exports.
The two sailors were killed when they tried to intercept a small boat sighted near the Khawr al-Amaya oil terminal in the north of the Gulf, the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said in a press release.
As the eight-member boarding team approached the boat, it exploded, flipping the team's craft and throwing the crew into the water.
Soon afterward, two more boats were seen approaching the al-Basra terminal. Security forces from the terminals went to intercept the boats, which then exploded, the statement said.
Violence was felt in several other parts of Iraq, too, on the day after the U.S. military warned it could move into the rebel stronghold Fallujah and a senior Muslim cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr (search), vowed homicide attacks should U.S. forces attack in his city of Najaf.
Volleys of rockets struck the capital's crowded Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Sadr City (search) on Saturday, hitting a busy market, smashing into a home and killing at least seven Iraqis. Outside Baghdad, insurgents rocketed a U.S. military base, killing four soldiers.
Besides the deaths in the Sadr City rocket strikes, at least 26 Iraqis were reported killed in a bombing at Tikrit, clashes between Polish troops and Shiite militiamen in Karbala (search), U.S. raids overnight in Sadr City, and a roadside bombing south of Baghdad.
Four American solders were killed around dawn when two rockets fired from a truck hit the U.S. base at Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, Air Force Lt. Col. Sam Hudspath said. U.S. helicopter gunships then destroyed the truck, the military said.
Six soldiers were wounded in the attack, three of them critically, the military said.
The deaths, along with the combat death of a Marine announced Saturday, brought to 107 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April. Since the U.S.-led invasion last year, 715 American military personnel have died in Iraq.
The pre-dawn fighting in Sadr City (search), in eastern Baghdad, came when U.S. troops sought to capture suspected Shiite militiamen, sparking a battle that the military said killed one or two Iraqis. During the fighting, three Iraqi girls were badly burned when a shell exploded in their bedroom where they slept.
Hours later, a volley of three rockets was fired into Sadr City, a slum of more than 1 million people. One hit the neighborhood's crowded souk, known as Chicken Market, where hundreds had gathered for morning shopping. Human flesh could be seen among scattered merchandise and burned cars.
At least six Iraqis were killed and 38 wounded, said Yassin Abdel-Qader, a doctor with the area's Health Directorate.
A few hours later, a rocket struck a two-story house in Sadr City, smashing through the roof and down to the ground floor, killing a woman as she took an afternoon nap and wounding her daughter. At least two more rockets exploded later on a main street on the edge of Sadr City, breaking windows but causing no casualties.
It was not immediately known who was behind the rocket assault on the predominantly Shiite district, which is a stronghold of the al-Mahdi Army militia of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The neighborhood is named for al-Sadr's father, a cleric who was murdered by Saddam Hussein's agents.
U.S. commanders have blamed Sunni Muslim insurgents for military-style rocket attacks on U.S. bases in the past. But people in the neighborhood blamed the Americans for Saturday's rocket barrages, which came after the overnight clash.
After the rocket strike, residents chanted: "Long live al-Sadr! America and the Governing Council are infidels!"
In other violence Saturday:
— A roadside bomb exploded near a bus in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 13 Iraqis, including at least one child, and wounding 17 people, a hospital official said. The bomb was planted in the ground and went off as a bus carrying 21 people was passing, said police officer Ali Mahmoud.
— Polish troops clashed overnight with Shiite militiamen in the city of Karbala, killing five, a spokesman for the multinational peacekeeping force in south-central Iraq said. A day earlier, an attack on Bulgarian troops in the city killed one soldier.
— A roadside bomb destroyed a car carrying Iraqis near a U.S. base on a downtown street in the northern city of Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam and a center for anti-U.S. resistance. Four Iraqis — two policemen and two civilians — were killed and 16 people were wounded, the U.S. military said.
— An Iraqi woman working as a translator for the U.S. military and her husband were fatally shot as they drove to a U.S. base, a hospital official said.
— In Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a U.S. military convoy, setting off shooting that caused civilian casualties, witnesses said. U.S. helicopters were seen taking American casualties away, the witnesses said. There was no immediate comment from the military.
— Gunmen attacked a U.S. convoy near the city of Kut, and an armored vehicle was reported burned. Witnesses also said they saw American casualties.
The Pentagon announced Friday that 595 U.S. soldiers have been wounded in the past two weeks, raising the total number of wounded in combat to 3,864 since the start of the conflict.
Also on Friday, the United Nations' envoy said the 25 members of Iraq's U.S.-picked Governing Council should be excluded from a planned caretaker government that is supposed to take nominal sovereignty from the U.S.-led occupation on June 30.
While a group of "technocrats" runs the interim government, the council members should spend the next nine months campaigning for elections due by the end of January, said the envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi.
Washington has thrown its backing behind Brahimi's proposal, suggesting the United States is prepared to allow the removal of Iraqis it had put forward to run the country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.