1 U.S. Soldier Dead In Baghdad Bomb Attack

More Than A Dozen Militants Killed In Sadr City District; U.S. Airstrike Near Hospital Destroys Ambulances

(CBS/AP)  U.S. soldiers killed 14 suspected Shiite militants and an American soldier died in a roadside bomb attack in the latest clashes in Baghdad, the military said Saturday.

More than 100 people were also wounded in clashes Friday and Saturday in Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district, Iraqi health officials said.

The U.S. military on Saturday fired missiles from a launcher on the ground at a target about 50 yards away from the general hospital in Sadr City.

Dr. Ali Bustan al-Fartusee, director general of Baghdad's health directorate, told The Associated Press that 23 civilians were injured in air strike.

He said no patients in the hospital were hurt, but that some of the wounded included civilians outside on their way to visit patients in the hospital and around 17 ambulances were damaged.

Earlier, hospital officials said 28 people had been injured; the reason for the discrepancy was not immediately known.

The U.S. military said in a press release it destroyed a "criminal element command and control center" with missiles in northeastern Baghdad - where Sadr City is located - around the same time Iraqis reported the attack near the hospital.

Shiite extremists are known to have operated in a building next to the hospital, local reporters said.

The attack left a crater just outside the concrete barriers of the hospital and badly damaged several ambulances along with some other vehicles, AP Television News footage showed. The explosion also demolished a brick building.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have been locked in street battles with Shiite militias since late March in Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people and the base of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

The U.S. military said 10 militants were killed in the fighting Friday, including a sniper and a triggerman accused of planting armor-piercing roadside bombs in Sadr City and the adjacent Ubaydi area. U.S. forces used aircraft and an Abrams battle tank in the attack.

The soldiers killed four militants early Saturday elsewhere in Baghdad, the military added.

Several vehicles and buildings were destroyed in the clashes, police said.

The American military also announced Saturday that a U.S. soldier died of wounds sustained in a roadside bomb that struck the soldier's vehicle during a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad on Friday. The announcement comes a day after the military said another roadside bomb attack in eastern Baghdad killed a U.S. soldier.

The fighting is part of a 5-week-old crackdown by the Iraqi government and U.S. forces on Shiite militia factions. The clashes have brought deep rifts among Iraq's Shiite majority and have pulled U.S. troops into difficult urban combat.

But Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, shows no indication of easing the pressure on militia groups, including the powerful Mahdi Army led by al-Sadr.

Iraqi and U.S. forces are pressing deeper into Sadr City, and al-Maliki has been seeking to increase leverage on Iran, which is accused of training and arming some Shiite militia groups. Iran denies the claims.

A five-member Iraqi delegation was sent to Tehran this week to try to choke off suspected Iranian aid to militiamen.

Shiite militiamen have used Sadr City as a base to fire barrages of missiles and mortar rounds at the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government.


Turkey Announces 150 Kurdish Rebels Killed

The Turkish military says a raid in northern Iraq earlier this week killed more than 150 Kurdish rebels.

The military said Saturday it successfully hit all its targets in a three-hour air operation on Mount Qandil. The raid ended early Friday.

The military had said earlier that its warplanes bombed the Kurdish rebel group PKK deep inside Iraq but had not given casualty figures.

The PKK took up arms in 1984 in their bid for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people.

The Turkish military has launched several air assaults on PKK targets in northern Iraq in recent months.


In Memoriam

Capt. Andrew R. Pearson, age 32, of Billings, Mont., was killed April 30, 2008 by an IED in Baghdad. He was with the 4th Infantry out of Ft. Hood, Texas.

Pearson, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, had joined the Army in June 1998 and was on his third tour after serving previously in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The photo at left shows Capt. Pearson in 2001.)

He was married with four children.

His father, Ron Pearson, of Lockwood, Mont., said in an interview Friday that his son had believed in the mission in Iraq and "gave his all for America."

Also killed in the explosion was 21-year-old Spc. Ronald J. Tucker of Fountain, Colo.

As of Friday, May 2, 2008, at least 4,065 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

[cjace]

Our troops are brave and doing their job. Enough is enough, our troops are sent there time and time again. It is time to call it a day, and bring them home.

[prinzowhales]

Six Americans dead Saturday...The war continues...
"Mission Accomplished!"...and, CBS memorializes a dead serviceman, for perhaps the first time in recent memory since it helped as part of the "Great Wurlitzer"--CBSCNNABCFOXNBCPBS-- playing the lies, one after another, 935 by one count, to gull this nation into a vile and odious war of aggression....another life wasted in the Stupid Peoples'' War for Big Oil and Israel.

Our real enemy, lest we forget, is in Washington. Its disdain for our Constitution and Republic is palpable! Down with the Regime! Down with the Demopublican tax-eating scum!

[mh4cbs1]

4,060 Dead troops = 5 miles of end to end coffins. Think about it next time you are driving on the highway, visualize for 5 miles the end to end coffins of our troops, each with devastated families.

The coffins of the Iraqis would go on for a COUPLE HUNDRED MILES.

The blood of these people are on the hands of the Lying SOBs Cheney and Bush, their NeoCon cabal, and the complicit spineless Democrats who write the chimp his blank check every year.

JAIL Bush and Cheney! Murderous Thugs!

[ontheleft]

''1 U.S. Soldier Dead In Baghdad Bomb Attack''

What about the 4 U.S. soldiers killed in Anbar province today? The media has been sweeping soldier deaths under the rug ever since the surge of propaganda started last year.

[senshanto]

HORRIBLE! EVERYDAY STORY OF ELIMINATION OF MANKIND!
SHOULD ONE MILLION DIE FOR IRAQI OIL AND THE MOST ANTI-CHRIST BUSH WILL FIND HIS PEACE OF MIND?
WHY,YOU PEOPLE OF AMERICA, DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHO ELSE THIS BUSH ARE THE WAR CRIMINALS ? WHO ELSE THESE BUSH AND RICE AND OTHER BUSH''S HENCHMEN SHOULD BE TRIED FOR CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY IN THIS 21ST CENTURY?
OR DO YOU LIKE TO ACCEPT DAILY MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL DEGRADATION OF THE GREAT AMERICA?

[iamauto]

Now we see who the most evil in this world.
God won''t forgive us.

[jerr11]

4065 Already.

I was still thinking 4059.

Sad, when I can''t even keep up with the body count.

[rudy654-2009]

Meanwhile, Turkey is killing formerly pro-American Kurds up north. Aint it grand?

[rudy654-2009]

hungry-JeremiahWright-1968,,,Don
t be fool. Those ambulances were being used by militants to fool our troops.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by BagdadsHere at 05:14 PM

Man, what are you doing at a computer wasting your tremendous August powers of knowledge? I mean, the article says hospital, and ambulances and people visiting the sick, but you know that right away they were nothing but militants. Amazing. Can you give us the winning lottery numbers, as well?

[hermitdave]

WOW--George the SPLURGE seems to be working just great. I guess you will spend the weekend at "RENT A COW RANCH", cutting brush is more than watching them unload those *** coffins at Dover AFB.

[kretos-2009]

*** bush the terrorist

[murphcar]

This latest casualty is very personal to me and my family. We personally new Spc. Ronnie Tucker. The last time we were with Ronnie was July 14, 2003. We went to Bush Gardens in Denver, Colorado. The loss of Ronnie to Susan A (his mother), and sisters Samantha, and Daisy who presently serves in the U.S Navy is heartbreaking. Yes, we hear of the terrible losses everyday, but when it is someone who is your neighbor and, you watch grow up with there are no words of comfort for there family. We share in there loss and pain. We know Ronnie was out there protecting his country. Thank - you Ronnie for all you did for us, and your family. We will never forget your sacrafice. We will see you again. God Bless his family!

[ontheleft]

17 ambulances were damaged? No problem. We''ll just borrow more money so Halliburton can replace them at a cost of $2.1 billion each.

[trillion1]

Winning hearts and minds.

[smirk5]

When Bush implied we had won in Iraq with his Mission Accomplished Banner, he didn''t mean that we had won the war in Iraq. He simply meant that we had finally arrived at the stage in the conflict where we would be in a neverending quagmire. Please don''t be confused.

[glossypan]

John McCain =
more death
more debt
more destruction.

[hungry1968]

1 U.S. Soldier Dead In Baghdad Bomb Attack
More Than A Dozen Militants Killed In Sadr City District; U.S. Airstrike Near Hospital Destroys Ambulances





That sounds like Israel destroying the Palestinian ambulances.

The difference there is it was OUR pilot, in OUR plane, with OUR ordinance, destroying ambulances that WE WILL have to pay for.

Nice shootin'' fellas!!

[j-whitman]

ibsteve2u,,,, For that remodeling job, I wonder if God will use a licensed contractor or hire an illegle ??

[grim56z]

A.Q. and Taliban are skinny twerps. Coalition kill 14 drag queens for respect. A good baseball score for Coalition. American Soldier train body with bench press of 500 pounds of steel. A.Q. have bodies like twigs. Their ploy of cross dressing vamps will not work. Coalition wise to their homosexual deception.

[j-whitman]

bluestardad,,,, 1st we have to convict Bush & McBush''s favorite defense contractors KBR, Dyncorp & others from the massive thef, fraud, & cost overurnns, & the treason selling our troop equipment on Iraq''s Black Market & E-bay.

McBush & Bush are waiting for the Statute of Limitations to hide the treason