Insurgents kill 19 US soldiers in deadliest attack of campaign
By James Hider
Huge explosion rips through mess tent as poll shows growing American doubts about Iraq mission
timesonline.co.uk
Insurgents kill 19 US soldiers in deadliest attack of campaign
By James Hider
Huge explosion rips through mess tent as poll shows growing American doubts about Iraq mission
DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. And more on the way.....
AT LEAST 19 American soldiers were killed in the deadliest single incident involving US troops in Iraq when their base in the turbulent northern city of Mosul came under attack yesterday.
Three other people also died and some 60, among them civilian contractors, were wounded.
An explosion struck the base’s dining tent at about noon as hundreds of US and Iraqi soldiers were lining up for lunch.
US officials initially suspected a rocket or mortar attack but said later that a suicide bomb had not been ruled out. “It is a very, very sad day,” said Brigadier-General Carter Ham, the commander of the 8,000 US troops in the Mosul area.
The attack on Forward Operating Base Marez, near Mosul airport, came as Tony Blair was visiting Baghdad, 250 miles to the south, to urge Iraqis to stand firm in the face of repeated terror attacks.
President Bush, visiting relatives of soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq, condemned the strike, which he said was aimed at derailing the transition to democracy in Iraq.
“We pray for them, we send our heartfelt condolences to the loved ones who suffered today,” he said. “I’m confident democracy will prevail in Iraq, I know a free Iraq will lead to a more peaceful world.”
But an ABC/Washington Post poll yesterday showed that 56 per cent of Americans now doubt whether the Iraq war was worth the cost — up seven percentage points from July to a new high.
An American photographer embedded with the US troops witnessed the blast and described its aftermath. He said the soldiers died as a fireball ripped through the tent, knocking them off their seats and sending thick clouds of smoke billowing through the base.
The soldiers used the tables where they had been eating as makeshift stretchers for the wounded, while others stag-gered outside and collapsed.
“I can’t hear! I can’t hear!” one woman soldier cried as her friend hugged her. Near the entrance, troops zipped a colleague with a gaping head wound into a body bag as other corpses were covered with blankets.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by a hardline group, the Ansar al-Sunna, which said that the explosion was the work of a suicide bomber. “One of the Mujahidin of the Army of Ansar al-Sunna carried out a martyrdom operation in a restaurant of the infidel occupation forces at the Ghazlani camp in Mosul,” said an internet statement posted by the group, which has staged a number of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
Most American bases in the north and centre of Iraq are regular targets for hit-and-run mortar attacks, which usually cause little damage and few casualties. Yesterday’s strike came two days after twin car bombings in the Shia south killed 67 civilians and raised fresh fears of violence in the run-up to Iraq’s first postwar elections.
Washington swiftly pledged that the increasing violence in Iraq would not force next month’s elections off course but the attack came after Mr Bush admitted that guerrilla attacks were having an impact in the war-torn country.
“It’s important that we continue to go after the Saddam (Hussein) loyalists and the terrorists who want to turn back to the past. They will be defeated . . . they are being defeated,” Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said.
Mosul, an ethnically mixed city, which used to be a major recruiting ground for Saddam Hussein’s officer corps, was once considered a success story by the coalition but has suffered a sharp rise in violence in recent months.
Intelligence officials believe fighters driven from Fallujah may have taken up position there to foment ethnic unrest between the city’s Arabs and Kurds. Other guerrillas are believed to have crossed from Syria and infiltrated the area.
During last month’s battle for Fallujah guerrillas stormed a dozen police stations and were dislodged only after a stiff fight with US and Iraqi forces. The situation has remained tense since, with more than 160 bodies, many decapitated, found in the region in recent weeks. Three Turkish security guards were lynched there last week, one beheaded by his assailants in the street.
US bases in Iraq are heavily guarded but let in scores of Iraqi workers every day to work as cleaners and builders. Guerrilla groups say that they have used this weak spot to infiltrate the camps.
Two months ago two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Baghdad’s high-security green zone, where the US and British embassies are located, as well as the Iraqi interim Government.
WORST ATTACKS
Most lethal attacks on coalition forces since Iraq war ended
2004
DEAD, Oct 30: Eight US Marines killed and ten wounded in car bomb attack near Fallujah
DEAD, Sept 6: Seven US soldiers, three Iraqi National Guards killed by car bomb near Fallujah
DEAD, April 29: Eight US soldiers killed by car bomb in Mahmudiyah
DEAD, April 6: Twelve US Marines killed in Ramadi
DEAD, Jan 8: Helicopter shot down near Fallujah, killing nine US soldiers
2003
DEAD, Dec 27: Seven coalition troops — five Bulgarians and two Thais— among 19 killed in Karbala car bomb attacks
DEAD, Nov 29: Seven Spanish intelligence agents killed south of Baghdad
DEAD, Nov 15: US helicopter avoiding rocket-propelled grenade near Mosul hits a helicopter, killing 17
DEAD, Nov 12: Lorry bomb in Nasiriyah kills 28 people, 19 of them Italians
DEAD, Nov 2: US helicopter shot down near Fallujah, killing 16 troops
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