Four Marines Killed In Anbar Explosion

Journalist Killed In Botched Kidnapping; Iraq's First Lady Unharmed By Bomb Attack

(CBS/AP)  A bomb hit a motorcade carrying Iraq's first lady through Baghdad on Sunday, while the U.S. military said a roadside explosion killed four Marines in the deadliest attack in western Anbar province in months.

The motorcade bombing in Baghdad's Karrada district injured four of Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed's bodyguards but left her unharmed, according to the office of her husband, President Jalal Talabani.

She was headed to the city's central National Theater to attend a cultural festival when the attack occurred just before noon, said the presidential office. It was unclear if she was the target or if the bombing was random.

The four Marines were killed in Anbar province on Friday, but no other details of the incident were released.

Anbar was once a stronghold for insurgents battling against U.S. forces. But in the past year the vast desert province has largely been calmed with the rise of the Awakening Council movement - Sunni fighters who now turn their guns on al Qaeda instead of U.S. forces.

Friday's attack was the most lethal in the province since Sept. 6, when four Marines were killed in combat. The military did not release details of those deaths either.

On April 22, two Marines were killed in Anbar when a bomb-rigged truck exploded at a checkpoint in the city of Ramadi.

Despite new reports of violence, military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll told reporters on Saturday that attacks carried out by al Qaeda declined last month after increasing earlier this year.

He said there was "no place for al Qaeda" to hide in Iraq and U.S. troops were continuing to hunt them down in Diyala province and the city of Mosul, where many are believed to have fled north from Baghdad.

Sadr City Clashes

Iraqi health officials said at least 10 people - including two children - were killed in the past 24 hours in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people and a stronghold for the Mahdi Army militia led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Officials at two hospitals in Sadr City spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling militia members there for weeks as part of an Iraqi government crackdown on the fighters.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the battles against the militia fighters in Sadr City would continue.

"It is the full responsibility of the Iraqi government to implement the rule of law," al-Dabbagh said.

The clashes with Mahdi Army have caused deep rifts among Iraq's Shiite majority and have pulled U.S. troops into difficult urban combat.

Militia members have been blamed for firing hundreds of rockets or mortars from Sadr City into the Green Zone, the U.S.-protected area housing the American embassy and much of the Iraqi government. In the past month, more than a dozen people - including two American civilians and soldiers - have been killed inside the zone during the attacks.

Journalist Killed In Mosul

Gunmen killed a woman journalist during a botched kidnapping attempt Sunday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police, and family said.

Sarwa Abdul-Wahab, 36, worked as a lawyer defending journalists' rights and freelanced Kurdistan Reporters News Agency.

Police said Abdul-Wahab was walking from her home to a market with her mother when two gunmen pulled up in a car and tried to kidnap her. The gunmen shot her twice in the head when she resisted, her mother said.

Her mother, who identified herself as Umm Mohammed, told The Associated Press that she asked the gunmen to take her instead of her daughter.

"I begged the gunmen to kill me instead, they pushed me away and told me that they wanted her not me," she said by telephone.

Abdul-Wahab was reporting from Mosul for a news agency affiliated to Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, said police Brig. Gen. Khalid Abdul-Sattar, the security spokesman for Nineveh province.

She was also a member of an association to defending journalists' rights which was formed in 2003, according to Yasir al-Hamadani, the director of the Mosul branch.

"She was a member of our association which is based in Baghdad but has a branch in Mosul," he said, adding that Abdul-Wahab worked at the Salaheddin satellite TV channel and at many local newspapers before working for that agency.

"Besides her work as a journalist, she was activist working with non-governmental organizations as well as being a lawyer," al-Hamadani said. "We are very sorry to lose her. She was very active and very passionate about her work."

The attack took place at about 9:00 a.m. in Bakir neighborhood in eastern Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Abdul-Sattar said.

The attack came just over a week after another group of assailants on April 25 gunned down an Iraqi journalist in the southern city of Basra who had been working for a local radio station run by a Shiite political party that is the chief rival of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Jassim al-Batat, 38, worked for the local al-Nakhil radio station based in Basra.

Al-Nakhil radio is run by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. Its leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim has sided with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki since Iraqi security forces launched a crackdown on al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in Basra a month ago.

Journalists have frequently been targeted or caught up in attacks in Iraq. More than 175 journalists and media support workers have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Reporters without Borders, the Paris-based advocacy group, said Friday that 211 media assistants and journalists, including al-Batat, have been killed since the invasion began.

The fate of another 14 journalists and assistants who were kidnapped is not known, the group said.

Hundreds of Iraqi journalists also have been forced into exile since the war started five years ago, Reporters Without Borders said in a report in March. Most fled to Jordan or Syria after receiving threats or surviving murder attempts.

That report found that Iraqi journalists face the unique danger of being targeted by multiple groups including Sunni and Shiite militias, al Qaeda in Iraq, the police and U.S.-led forces.

[honestabe8]

My heart goes out to their families.

[dixiecharms]

Bucs5714, you are a jerk. But the biggest news is you should thank the military for they are the ones who have secured your freedom to speak your mind - what little mind you obviously possess.

[dixiecharms]

Okay, time to move the locals out the area and send in the big guns to do what they do best. Enough is enough! Too many of our young men and women have died and for such little gain. Thanks to all of our military personnel who have given so much to us.

[bucs5714]

4 dead Marines = 4 less paedophiles and rapists in the world.

[superdem]

This war IS all about oil, but that doesn''t mean plenty of cheap oil for American consumers, it means control of Iraqi sources by American companies who sell it for profits. And the profits they are making are obscene. As are the 4,071 American deaths, which should not be trivialized by comparisons to the rate of the killings in the Viet Nam war - both wars were immoral, unworthy of the United States, and highly destructive ventures doomed to failure. The Iraqis do not want democracy, they do not want western domination, they do not want Israeli style occupation. We cannot win, we cannot sustain the losing effort, and we need to leave, so the sooner the better.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[mbcsmith]

THANK YOU TO ALL THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN AND HEIR FAMILIES WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SACRIFICE SO THAT WE MAY LIVE IN PEACE AND FREEDOM.

[notblue]

Jameson, Sarge, skyk, walt, McVet, Artl, are all the same person. It''s easier to get alternate identities of the same person to agree with the ignorant untrue hate speech this guy spews every single day.

[skyk-2009]

Still in denial after all these years? or you just a wimp?


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

Posted by jamesm12341 at 08:45 AM : May 05, 2008
+ report abuse

It sounds to me like the Sarge just B!tch Slapped you pretty good. I talk to him at night a lot and am a vet like him. Maybe you folks should start to listen to him instead of continuing to buy the lies. He HAS been right about Bush and this mess in Iraq from day one you know. I remember all the way back then when Bush made his speech about not being able to give the Inspectors more time... Sarge said THEN that he was lying... he wanted to use the attack to get at the OIL. He was right!!

[sumarongi1]

When the Bush regime took up residence in Iraq, I commented to a friend that his generation had just inherited their version of the Vietnam War. 58,193 killed and over 250,000 wounded American military personnel. How long for this one and how high will the body count go? How far should we continue to devastate our own country, where the common folk are desperatly in need of help, to line the pockets of profiteers. The OIL Companies who are recording record profits every quarter and financial sharks who are cleaning up on the average American''s current financial demise. It''s time for this insanity to end. No government in Iraq is going to survive long no matter how long the duration of our stay.

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the American War, occurred from 1959 to April 30, 1975. The term Vietnam Conflict is often used to refer to events which took place between 1959 and April 30, 1975. The war was fought between the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam and its communist allies and the US supported Republic of Vietnam. It concluded with the defeat and dissolution of South Vietnam. For the United States, the war ended with the withdrawal of American troops and failure of its foreign policy in Vietnam.

[trishab4]

A soldier of 62nd Ordnance Company (EOD) Joint Task Force Troy MND-B kneels to pay a respects to his fallen comrade SFC Lawrence D.Ezell during a memorial service at Camp Taji north of Baghdad, CBSNews. Saturday, May 3, 2008. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

-This picture is depicting a reality that hurts. Lets get the troops back home asap. Barack Obama will bring them back. He promised!

[mcvet]

McVet, I am thru trying to convince you to get help your PTSD. If you havent gotten help for it by now you never will. YOu have proven you are to much a wimp to get the help you need. Your post above just shows how sick you really really are. Someone blesses the soldiers and you go off on one of your immature rants. You are unbelievable. Are you and floydzepp brothers by the way?


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

Posted by jamesm12341 at 07:27 AM : May 05, 2008
+ report abuse

Are you on some sort of "Superior" trip or something? YOU seem to think you know all and see all.... that somehow I give any concern to anything you say? HOW many times do I have to tell you that I care NONE, absolutely NOTHING, about what you think of me. Even a pathetic Bootlicker, after so many times, has to be able to understand that!! Let me put it in a language maybe YOU understand. I could give a Rat''s Azz what you think of me or my post!! SIEG HEIL MEIN FUHRER!!

[mcvet]

May the Good Lord Bless Your Souls, the Brave Soldiers.


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

Posted by dumbshun at 02:26 AM : May 05, 2008

I''ve always hated having people say garbage like this.... they don''t mean it and it''s for THEIR selfish reason''s. Someone who really DID believe this would be demanding to know why these good men were dying for Oil Rights and for BIG OIL! McCain say''s HE has an Energy Policy that will allow us to keep our troops home? Why weren''t we told about this instead of being lied too? Why NOW, going into the 6th year of a War about OIL, are we finding that out? Sieg Heil Bush