The message this weekend seems to be "the friend of our enemy - is our enemy".
Washington's allies came in to the cross-hairs of Iraqi insurgents over the weekend in attacks that complicated efforts to expand a Allied military force to support the US-led occupation.
Assaults on Iraqis who are deemed to be co-operating with the "coalition", particularly the police, have been stepped up recently. But, over the weekend, guerrillas killed two South Korean electricians, a Colombian contractor for the US military, seven Spanish military intelligence agents, two Japanese diplomats and two American soldiers. The South Koreans, who worked for a company based in Seoul, were shot while riding in a civilian car near Tikrit. Two other South Koreans were wounded in the attack. They were hired to lay electricity lines to a transmission station. At the scene of the attack yesterday, a bullet-ridden four-wheel-drive covered in blood sat by the side of the road between Tikrit and Samarra.
The attack was on the same highway where two Japanese diplomats were shot dead on Saturday after they stopped at a roadside food stall. Both Japan and South Korea have been wavering over whether to send troops to Iraq. Contractors are becoming guerrilla targets, even though a number of them are paying large sums for heavily armed private security guards. Suicide bombers have caused international diplomats and aid agencies to withdraw many foreign staff from Iraq.
from
news.independent.co.uk
So to the earlier Polish and Italian losses, now added are Spanish, Japanese, Korean and a "Colombian contractor". In bloody Iraq, it has become the "coalition of the spilling".
JMO
lurqer |
