U.S.: 10 Memorial Day Deaths in Iraq
Pastor Dale Morgan
May 29, 1:33 PM EDT
*U.S.: 10 Memorial Day Deaths in Iraq*
By RAVI NESSMAN
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Ten American soldiers died in roadside bombings and a
helicopter crash on Memorial Day, the military reported Tuesday, making
May the deadliest month of the year for U.S. troops in Iraq.
In other violence, five Britons were kidnapped Tuesday from an Iraqi
government office in Baghdad, driven away in a 19-vehicle convoy filled
with men in police uniforms who headed toward a Shiite stronghold in the
capital, the British government and an Iraqi official said.
The American deaths raised the number of U.S. forces killed this month
to at least 112, according to an Associated Press count assembled from
U.S. military statements.
Eight of the soldiers were from Task Force Lightning - six killed when
explosions hit near their vehicles and two in a helicopter crash. The
military did not say if the helicopter was shot down or had mechanical
problems.
The military said two Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers were
killed the same day when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb in
southern Baghdad.
The deaths were announced in three statements issued by the U.S.
military public affairs office at Camp Victory at Baghdad Airport.
Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said the
abduction at the Iraqi Finance Ministry office was carried out by men
wearing police uniforms who showed up in 19 four-wheel drive vehicles of
the type used by police. He said the band of kidnappers drove off toward
Sadr City, the Shiite Mahdi Army stronghold in northeastern Baghdad.
In London, a Foreign Office spokewoman said the five people kidnapped
Tuesday were British. The spokeswoman gave the information on condition
of anonymity in line with government policy.
A senior official in the Iraqi Interior Ministry confirmed the five were
British and that Mahdi Army militiamen were believed responsible. The
official provided the information on condition that his name not be used.
In McLean, Va., Steve Lunceford, a spokesman for the BearingPoint
management consulting firm, said one of the kidnap victims worked for
the company. The other four were employees with the Montreal-based
security firm GardaWorld, according to Joe Gavaghan, a spokesman for the
Canadian company.
Also in Baghdad, a parked minibus packed with explosives blew up in
Tayaran Square, riddling cars with shrapnel, knocking over pushcarts and
sending smoke into the sky, witnesses said. The blast killed 23 people
and injured 68 others, a police official in the district said on
condition he not be named. The official said his superiors refused to
allow him to speak to reporters. Firefighters rushed to the scene and
rescuers tried to pull the wounded out of cars, they said.
Yousef Qasim, 37, was working in his clothing shop 200 yards away when
the blast tore through a line of buses waiting at the square, he said.
"I rushed there to see about four or five burning bodies," he said. "I
saw flesh on the ground and pools of blood."
Shop owners grabbed their wares and tried to flee, fearing a second
blast, said Talib Dhirgham, who owns a nearby laundry. Police
confiscated the cameras of journalists who came to cover the attack,
according to AP photographers and television cameramen who went to the
scene.
More than an hour later, a pickup truck parked next to a Shiite mosque
in the Amil district in western Baghdad exploded, completely demolishing
the mosque, killing 17 people and wounding 55 others, according to a
second police official, who also spoke on condition anonymity because he
felt use of his name would put his life in danger. The mosque was
reduced to rubble and piles of brick, according to AP Television News
footage. Cars were flipped over, charred and dented. Residents pushed
debris off nearby roofs.
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, a police official in
the city said on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.
The attacks came a day after U.S. and Iranian officials met in Baghdad
under the auspices of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to try to end
the violence here.
Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday criticized the
talks as interference in Iraq's internal affairs and warned Iraqi
officials not to participate in them.
"I call on the brave people to reject these negotiations," he said in a
statement released by his office in the holy city of Najaf.
On Monday, 36 people were killed across Baghdad in a wave of attacks,
according to an AP tabulation of reports from police officials who said
they could lose their jobs if they provided the information. Another 33
bullet-riddled bodies were found dead, tortured and abandoned in
different parts of the capital, the apparent victims of ongoing
sectarian violence, said an official in an Iraqi ministry who has access
to daily reports. The official said he would be dismissed if his
superiors knew he was releasing the information to Western media outlets.