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Eight US soldiers die in Iraq 'copter crash, ambush
29 May 2007 12:12:57 GMT
Source: Reuters
(adds U.S. military spokesman)
BAGHDAD, May 29 (Reuters) - Two U.S. military personnel were killed when their helicopter came down under enemy fire north of Baghdad and six more died when a column of vehicles heading to the crash site was ambushed, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
The deaths on Monday brought the U.S. military death toll in Iraq to 112 this month, making May the deadliest for 2007 and equalling the record set in December 2006.
A total of 3,463 U.S. soldiers have died since the March 2003 invasion. The worst month for U.S. forces was November 2004, when 137 were killed.
U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Garver said the helicopter came down in Diyala province, where 3,000 additional U.S. troops have been sent to fight mostly al Qaeda militants.
"There was ground fire involved but we don't know how the helicopter went down," he said.
He said a quick reaction force had been dispatched to secure the crash site. Six soldiers were killed when their vehicles were hit by roadside bombs.
Militants have employed similar tactics in the past -- shooting down a helicopter and then ambushing the rescue force.
Insurgents have shot down at least nine helicopters this year, killing 30 people, mainly American soldiers. Seven of those aircraft were U.S. military helicopters and the other two belonged to a private American security company.
Diyala, a large, ethnically mixed region northeast of Baghdad, has seen some of the worst violence since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Violence has surged further in recent months since a crackdown in Baghdad forced militants to seek new bases.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29659728.htm
May 30, 2007, 12:51AM
May troop deaths 3rd worst of war
Losses stand at 113 with 2 days left in the month
By STEVEN R. HURST
Associated Press
BAGHDAD â May is not yet over, and already it has recorded the third-highest monthly death toll for American forces in Iraq since the war began four years ago.
The military announced that 10 soldiers were killed in roadside bombings and a helicopter crash on Memorial Day. As of late Tuesday, there were at least 113 U.S. deaths in Iraq so far in May, with two days left in the month.
The U.S. military has said soldiers could face higher chances of ambush and capture under a new strategy to shift troops into smaller outposts â part of plans to seek more outreach with Iraqi civilians and tips on militant activities.
Since the war began in March 2003, only two other months have recorded higher death tolls: November 2004 with 137 deaths, and April 2004 with 135 fatalities.
Still, Iraqis are dying in far greater numbers than U.S. troops.
Across the country Tuesday, police and morgue officials reported a total of at least 120 people killed or found dead.
Compounding the fresh evidence of chaos in Iraq, gunmen in police uniforms and driving vehicles used by security forces kidnapped five Britons from an Iraqi Finance Ministry office Tuesday, and a senior Iraqi official said the Shiite Mahdi Army militia was suspected.
Possible retaliation
The kidnappings, if the work of the Mahdi Army as asserted by Iraqi officials, could be retaliation for the killing by British forces last week of the militia's commander in Basra.
The raid also was reminiscent of an attack by the Shiite militiamen, dressed as Interior Ministry commandos, who stormed a Higher Education Ministry office Nov. 14 and snatched away as many as 200 people. Dozens of those kidnap victims were never found.
The Mahdi Army also was believed looking for a way to avenge the recent killing by U.S. forces of a top operative. He was said to have been the author of an attack in the holy city of Karbala in January in which gunmen â speaking English and wearing U.S. military uniforms â abducted four U.S. soldiers and then shot them to death.
In the Finance Ministry attack, about 40 heavily armed men snatched the five Britons from an annex and sped away in a convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold not far away, according to the British Foreign office in London.
Joe Gavaghan, a spokesman for Montreal-based security firm GardaWorld, confirmed that four of its security workers and one client were kidnapped. All four GardaWorld workers are British citizens, he said, declining to provide more details.
8 troops from same unit
A spokesman for BearingPoint, a McLean, Va.,-based management consulting firm, said one of the company's employees, apparently the client referred to by Gavaghan, was among those abducted.
Eight of the U.S. soldiers killed on Monday were from Task Force Lightning. Six were killed in an insurgent roadside bomb ambush as they raced to rescue the two others, who died in a helicopter crash.
The military did not say if the helicopter was shot down or had mechanical problems. All eight died in Diyala province, north of the capital.
Two other U.S. troopers died Monday in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad, the military said.
Baghdad police, meanwhile, said two car bombers hit neighborhoods on opposite sides of the Tigris River on Tuesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 123. A Shiite mosque was destroyed in the second of the two attacks, in the Amil neighborhood in west Baghdad.
The first attack hit Tayaran Square, riddling cars with shrapnel, knocking over pushcarts and sending smoke into the sky. The blast killed 23 people and wounded 68 others.
More than an hour later, a pickup that was parked next to a Shiite mosque in the Amil district in western Baghdad exploded, demolishing the mosque, killing 17 people and wounding 55 others, according to a second police official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear for his life.
In other violence, gunmen in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, set up fake checkpoints on the outskirts of the city and abducted more than 40 people, most of them soldiers, police officers and members of two tribes that had banded together against local insurgents.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4846119.html
29 May 2007 12:12:57 GMT
Source: Reuters
(adds U.S. military spokesman)
BAGHDAD, May 29 (Reuters) - Two U.S. military personnel were killed when their helicopter came down under enemy fire north of Baghdad and six more died when a column of vehicles heading to the crash site was ambushed, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
The deaths on Monday brought the U.S. military death toll in Iraq to 112 this month, making May the deadliest for 2007 and equalling the record set in December 2006.
A total of 3,463 U.S. soldiers have died since the March 2003 invasion. The worst month for U.S. forces was November 2004, when 137 were killed.
U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Garver said the helicopter came down in Diyala province, where 3,000 additional U.S. troops have been sent to fight mostly al Qaeda militants.
"There was ground fire involved but we don't know how the helicopter went down," he said.
He said a quick reaction force had been dispatched to secure the crash site. Six soldiers were killed when their vehicles were hit by roadside bombs.
Militants have employed similar tactics in the past -- shooting down a helicopter and then ambushing the rescue force.
Insurgents have shot down at least nine helicopters this year, killing 30 people, mainly American soldiers. Seven of those aircraft were U.S. military helicopters and the other two belonged to a private American security company.
Diyala, a large, ethnically mixed region northeast of Baghdad, has seen some of the worst violence since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Violence has surged further in recent months since a crackdown in Baghdad forced militants to seek new bases.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29659728.htm
May 30, 2007, 12:51AM
May troop deaths 3rd worst of war
Losses stand at 113 with 2 days left in the month
By STEVEN R. HURST
Associated Press
BAGHDAD â May is not yet over, and already it has recorded the third-highest monthly death toll for American forces in Iraq since the war began four years ago.
The military announced that 10 soldiers were killed in roadside bombings and a helicopter crash on Memorial Day. As of late Tuesday, there were at least 113 U.S. deaths in Iraq so far in May, with two days left in the month.
The U.S. military has said soldiers could face higher chances of ambush and capture under a new strategy to shift troops into smaller outposts â part of plans to seek more outreach with Iraqi civilians and tips on militant activities.
Since the war began in March 2003, only two other months have recorded higher death tolls: November 2004 with 137 deaths, and April 2004 with 135 fatalities.
Still, Iraqis are dying in far greater numbers than U.S. troops.
Across the country Tuesday, police and morgue officials reported a total of at least 120 people killed or found dead.
Compounding the fresh evidence of chaos in Iraq, gunmen in police uniforms and driving vehicles used by security forces kidnapped five Britons from an Iraqi Finance Ministry office Tuesday, and a senior Iraqi official said the Shiite Mahdi Army militia was suspected.
Possible retaliation
The kidnappings, if the work of the Mahdi Army as asserted by Iraqi officials, could be retaliation for the killing by British forces last week of the militia's commander in Basra.
The raid also was reminiscent of an attack by the Shiite militiamen, dressed as Interior Ministry commandos, who stormed a Higher Education Ministry office Nov. 14 and snatched away as many as 200 people. Dozens of those kidnap victims were never found.
The Mahdi Army also was believed looking for a way to avenge the recent killing by U.S. forces of a top operative. He was said to have been the author of an attack in the holy city of Karbala in January in which gunmen â speaking English and wearing U.S. military uniforms â abducted four U.S. soldiers and then shot them to death.
In the Finance Ministry attack, about 40 heavily armed men snatched the five Britons from an annex and sped away in a convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold not far away, according to the British Foreign office in London.
Joe Gavaghan, a spokesman for Montreal-based security firm GardaWorld, confirmed that four of its security workers and one client were kidnapped. All four GardaWorld workers are British citizens, he said, declining to provide more details.
8 troops from same unit
A spokesman for BearingPoint, a McLean, Va.,-based management consulting firm, said one of the company's employees, apparently the client referred to by Gavaghan, was among those abducted.
Eight of the U.S. soldiers killed on Monday were from Task Force Lightning. Six were killed in an insurgent roadside bomb ambush as they raced to rescue the two others, who died in a helicopter crash.
The military did not say if the helicopter was shot down or had mechanical problems. All eight died in Diyala province, north of the capital.
Two other U.S. troopers died Monday in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad, the military said.
Baghdad police, meanwhile, said two car bombers hit neighborhoods on opposite sides of the Tigris River on Tuesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 123. A Shiite mosque was destroyed in the second of the two attacks, in the Amil neighborhood in west Baghdad.
The first attack hit Tayaran Square, riddling cars with shrapnel, knocking over pushcarts and sending smoke into the sky. The blast killed 23 people and wounded 68 others.
More than an hour later, a pickup that was parked next to a Shiite mosque in the Amil district in western Baghdad exploded, demolishing the mosque, killing 17 people and wounding 55 others, according to a second police official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear for his life.
In other violence, gunmen in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, set up fake checkpoints on the outskirts of the city and abducted more than 40 people, most of them soldiers, police officers and members of two tribes that had banded together against local insurgents.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4846119.html
