BAGHDAD, June 25, 2008
3 U.S. Troops Dead In Northern Iraq Blast
Nighttime Attack Comes Hours After Explosion In Baghdad Kills 2 GIs, 2 American Workers
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Iraqis inspect damaged cars after a car bomb blast in Karradah neighborhood, central Baghdad, Iraq, on Wednesday, June 25, 2008. (AP Photo/Loay Hameed)
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A U.S. Army soldier patrols in Salman Pak, about 15 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday, June 23, 2008. (AP Photo/Loay Hameed)
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Qasim al Sudani, an Al Sadr city council member lies on a bed in hospital in Sadr city, Baghdad as relatives and friend stand next to him, on Tuesday, June 24, 2008. Sudani is one of three council members who was wounded after a bomb struck a municipal council building Tuesday in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City district. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
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Leigh Rich hugs her son, Australian soldier Private Kenneth Pegg, on his return home from Iraq at the Brisbane International Airport Sunday, June 22, 2008. The return of the soldiers from the Overwest Battle Group (West) Four marks the end of Australian soldier combat deployment in Southern Iraq. (AP Photo/ Tony Phillips)
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An Iraqi woman reacts at the scene were a female suicide bomber detonated her explosives in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, on Sunday, June 22, 2008. A female suicide bomber struck near a government compound northeast of Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 40, the police said. (AP Photo)
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Photo Essay Week In Iraq Photos A daily diary with scenes of the latest attacks and snapshots from the effort to rebuild a nation.
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Interactive Iraq: 5 Years At War Five years after the U.S.-led invasion, the war wears on.
American soldiers using specially trained dogs sifted through the wreckage Wednesday of an office in Sadr City where a bomb killed 10 people, including four Americans working to restore local government in the former Shiite militia stronghold.
Also Wednesday, U.S. soldiers in Baghdad killed three gunmen who fired on an American convoy that had stopped along the side of the road just west of the city's airport, the U.S. said. No further details were released.
Iraqi police said six members of a family were killed early Wednesday when a U.S. jet destroyed a house 10 miles north of Tikrit. U.S. officials made no mention of civilian deaths and said the house was attacked after American troops took small arms fire.
Elsewhere, a car bomb killed three people and wounded seven about noon Wednesday in Baghdad's Karradah district, witnesses and police said.
The roadside bombing that killed the Americans occurred about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday in Nineveh province, where al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups remain active. The U.S. statement contained no further details.
Their deaths brought to at least 4,109 the number of U.S. military members who have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
At least 25 service members have died this month. May's death tally of 19 was the lowest monthly toll of the Iraq conflict.
The fighting in the south broke out before dawn near Nassiriyah, 200 miles south of Baghdad, as Iraqi forces were conducting house-to-house searches for Shiite militants.
Nassiriyah police chief Brig. Gen. Sabah al-Fatlawi said 14 suspects had been arrested but that sporadic clashes were continuing.
The area is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and has been plagued by power struggles between rival Shiite factions - some with close ties to the Shiite-led national government.
Internal Shiite rivalries may have been behind Tuesday's deadly blast inside the district council building in Sadr City, al-Sadr's Baghdad stronghold. The bomb went off inside a councilman's office ahead of an election to choose a new chairman of the council.
The acting head of the council, Jawad al-Itabi, said American investigators were searching the building Wednesday along with sniffer dogs looking for clues. He said 12 people were being detained for questioning, including 10 security guards.
Two of the U.S. dead were soldiers, the military said. The U.S. Embassy said the dead American civilians included one State Department and one Defense Department employee.
An Italian of Iraqi origin who was working as an interpreter for the Americans also was killed, according to the Italian Foreign Ministry.
The State Department identified one of the slain Americans as Steven L. Farley of Guthrie, Okla. He was believed to be the first member of a provincial reconstruction team to be killed in Iraq.
Farley's son, Brett, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that his father feared the situation could become dangerous after the council ousted a Sadrist member.
"It was today that they were scheduled to vote on electing a new chairman, a pro-democracy chairman, and he told me pointedly that it was the biggest moment that they had faced over there," Brett Farley said. "He fully understood what the risk was, but he was willing to bear it."
U.S. and Iraqi authorities offered differing versions of the airstrike near Tikrit. Iraqi police said a family of six, including four children, died in the attack.
The U.S. military said troops received small arms fire while conducting operations in the area. They called in an air strike after seeing an armed man move into a nearby group of buildings.
Four women were in the area but were turned over unharmed to Iraqi police, the U.S. military said. The differences could not be immediately reconciled.
In related developments:
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- Too bad that bin Laden has NOTHING to do with the fictional "al Qaeda in Iraq", huh?
Posted by hungry1968 ..what an imbecile!! BLAST kills 8th US soldier this week in Iraq,armor piercing roadside bomb used in attack may have links to IRAN..(reuters report)..ATTACK IRAN NOW MR BUSH!! - Reply to this comment
- The Saudis knew about the 9/11 attack before it happened. It started a convenient war that justified the raising of gasoline prices. George W. Bush is bribed daily by the Saudis to remain silent on the issue. Congress was paid graft by the Saudis to approve this police action. The American Public lost billions of dollars in tax money and they must pay $4 or $5 a gallon for gas.
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- How sad. All of it is very sad.
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- Bin Laden sacrifices Al Qada Iraq like goats to a ritual slaughter. He believes it proves his divinity and authority. Coalition Forces have no other choice but to kill the opposition. Bin Laden''''s religious delusions and hallucinations are macabre and genocidal. Al Qada Iraq is fighting a war for a deluded tyrant without mercy.
Posted by Petro49L at 02:51 PM : Jun 25, 2008
Too bad that bin Laden has NOTHING to do with the fictional "al Qaeda in Iraq", huh? - Reply to this comment
- Remember the mantra of the Grand Oil Party, the party of death and destruction: Be afraid, be very afraid. I am just amazed there are still so many Americans who are willing to take that advice. The real terrorists are in the White House and the corporate boardrooms of America.
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- I was watching a Senate hearing on C-SPAN a week or so ago. They were talking/questioning 2 IRAQ Parliment members. One in traditional Arab dress, the other in Western dress.
I can''t remember will Republican Senator it was, but he was trying to get these guys to say that the SURGE was the cause for the reduction in violence.
Both men claimed the SURGE WAS NOT THE CAUSE FOR THE REDUCTION IN VIOLENCE.
They said the reason for the reduction in violence was because Tribal leaders are going out finding Al QAEDA and killing them. They said...and it makes sense, "We know who the foreigners are. We know where they hide. We know their tactics."
The Republican Senator tried to get them to admit that the SURGE helped.
The 2 IRAQI Parlimentarians said No...PLUS We tried to tell the American Government we wanted to do this a year ago and they wouldn''t support us. (To be fair, that''s not a quote, but the meaing is there.
The sooner US troops pull out of IRAQ and let the IRAQIs clean this up the better. - Reply to this comment
Re: "how many camels killed ur stinky family memebers and make u turned against camels???"
Posted by guy_hero
I think that they were joking, by pointing out the ridiculousness of the idea that "we" will have to fight "them" "over here", unless we continue to kill and maim innocent people for no good reason "over there".- Reply to this comment
Re: "...where al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups remain active."
Not possible. This fabled group has already been declared re-defeated once again.- Reply to this comment
Related-
"Government Accountability Office Contradicts McCain, Concludes The Surge Has Failed"
http://firedoglake.com/2008/06/24/government-accountability-office-contradicts-mccain-concludes-the-surge-has-failed/- Reply to this comment
- Bin Laden sacrifices Al Qada Iraq like goats to a ritual slaughter. He believes it proves his divinity and authority. Coalition Forces have no other choice but to kill the opposition. Bin Laden''s religious delusions and hallucinations are macabre and genocidal. Al Qada Iraq is fighting a war for a deluded tyrant without mercy.
- Reply to this comment
- The Price of the Surge - Steven Simon
From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008
The Bush administration''s new strategy in Iraq has helped reduce violence. But the surge is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state and may even have made such an outcome less likely -- by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni tribes and pitting them against the central government. The recent short-term gains have thus come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080501faessay87305-p0/steven-simon/the-price-of-the-surge.html - Reply to this comment
- The surge is working! Just look at the oil prices. What a waste of good soldiers to go to die for Exxon. All these right wingers do not support the troops, they support war. And most of them are real brave with other people''s kids. Like Bushoccio and McSame.
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- THE SURGE IS WORKING!!!PEACE IS ON THE WAY IN IRAG!!!IF YOU BELIEVE THIS GO AHEAD AND VOTE FOR JOHN MCCAIN!!
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- More dead because of bush and his 935 lies that put us in this war. combiker, get a grip and stop acting like a frightened little wussie.
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- Mission Accomplished!!1 For Al Quada and Exxon, Blackwater, GM and the other war profiteers. What do they care about a few thousand people dying at the World Trade Center or in Iraq? They''re making out like bandits, just look at the price of gas. Bring them home now and impeach and imprison all those who supporting this murder.
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- And they will come here to fight.. and it will be your fault!
Posted by cornbiker at 09:50 AM : Jun 25, 2008
Just a slogon for the stupid. Don''t know how you believe that scam. What keeps them from coming here now? - Reply to this comment
- Go ahead cowards.. post your sorry little comments about retreating/ with drawling out troops & President Bush.. And once you do get our troops pulled out be prepared for more attacks on American soils.. Because those CRAZY Islamic nut jobs will claim victory. And in their twisted thinking (kinda like your own thinking) they will think they can beat us on American soil.. And they will come here to fight.. and it will be your fault!
Posted by cornbiker at 09:50 AM : Jun 25, 2008
Enlist... - Reply to this comment
- Good thing the Republicans won''t be in office much longer...it is sure to only get harder and harder to get people to enlist - so I''m glad I don''t have to worry about them thinking up brilliant new ways to increase enlistment numbers so that they don''t have to worry about their own children being drafted.
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- And they will come here to fight.. and it will be your fault!
Posted by cornbiker at 09:50 AM : Jun 25, 2008
Yea, yea, yea and we fought them in California in the 60 remember that was what you nut cases said then and we lost a lot of good men because of your kind was too filled with pride to realize that they didn''t want us there. Oh and guess what they are communist now and they are trade partners.
Conservatives want every thing there way and when they don''t get it they whine about it but now instead of putting the oil on the wheel we are just going to replace the whole dam car. - Reply to this comment
- START WAR CRIMES TRIALS ON BUSH AND THE NEOCONS WHO GAVE US THIS WAR!
AMERICA STAND UP OR SHUT UP!
GOOD THING IS THAT OBAMA IS NOT IN THE POCKET OF THE ISRAELI LOBBY SO WE WONT GO TO WAR WITH IRAN AND AMERICA WILL GET OUT OF IRAQ... - Reply to this comment
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