U.S.: 8 Memorial Day Deaths in Iraq
Pastor Dale Morgan
May 29, 10:24 AM EDT
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U.S.: 8 Memorial Day Deaths in Iraq*
By RAVI NESSMAN
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Eight American soldiers were killed in roadside bombings
and a helicopter crash in a restive province north of Baghdad, the U.S.
military reported Tuesday, making May the deadliest month of the year
for U.S. troops in Iraq.
In other violence, at least three Westerners were kidnapped Tuesday from
an Iraqi Finance Ministry office in Baghdad, according to Iraqi
government officials, and two car bombings killed 40 people and
destroyed a Shiite mosque in the capital, police said.
The Americans - all from Task Force Lightning - were killed Monday in
Diyala as the United States commemorated Memorial Day, bringing the
number of American forces killed this month to at least 110, according
to an Associated Press count assembled from U.S. military statements.
In statements issued Tuesday by the public affairs office of the
Multi-National Corps-Iraq office at Camp Victory at Baghdad Airport, the
military said six of the soldiers died in explosions near their vehicles
and two others were killed in the helicopter crash. The statements did
not say if the helicopter was shot down or suffered mechanical problems.
There were conflicting reports on the nationality and number of those
kidnapped. A high-ranking Iraqi government official, who would only
release the information on condition that he not be named or identified
by the ministry he worked in, said three Germans working for a German
computer company had been abducted.
However, an official in the Finance Ministry, who spoke on condition of
anonymity for fear he would be fired for speaking with the media, said
four people were abducted - one German and three Britons.
The men were kidnapped by a group of gunmen wearing police commando
uniforms who arrived at the ministry office - down the road from the
main Finance Ministry building - in a huge convoy of white sports
utility vehicles, which are often used by police, according to the two
government officials and a police officer, who said use of his name
could put his life in danger. Police have been accused of involvement in
attacks in the past.
Germany's Foreign Ministry said it was checking the report.
"The embassy in Baghdad and all of the relevant offices have been
alerted and are working to swiftly clarify the matter," a ministry
spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.
Britain's Foreign Office declined to confirm reports that British
citizens were involved, but a government's crisis committee was to meet
Tuesday in response to the reported incident, the Cabinet Office said.
Earlier this year, militants here kidnapped German citizens Hannelore
Marianne Krause, and her adult son, Sinan, and threatened to kill them
if Germany did not pull its troops from Afghanistan. German officials
have not said what the mother and son were doing in Iraq, where they
disappeared on Feb. 6. The fate of the two remains unknown.
Also, Tuesday afternoon, 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 laundromat. Police who
arrived at the scene 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 of 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.