2 GIs Die Hunting 'Chemical' Arms
An explosion leveled part of a building as American troops searched it for suspected production of "chemical munitions," a U.S. general said. Two soldiers were killed and five wounded in the blast, and a cheering mob of Iraqis looted their wrecked Humvees, stripping away weapons and equipment.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt did not say what sort of chemical munitions were believed to be produced at the site. "Chemical munitions could mean any number of things," including smoke grenades, he said.
Asked about reports that the raid team included members of the Iraq Survey Group — the U.S. team searching for weapons of mass destruction in the country — Kimmitt would say only, "The inspection was by a number of coalition forces."
He said the owner and associates of the site were "suspected of supplying chemical agents" to Iraqi insurgents, but did not elaborate. After the blast, there was no sign in the area of precautions against chemicals.
The Bush administration alleged that Iraq possessed chemical weapons stockpiles and the means to produce more, but no weapons have been found.
In Fallujah, U.S. troops and insurgents battled around a mosque in fighting that killed one Marine and eight militants. The area shook with heavy explosions a day after U.S. officials announced a fragile cease-fire in the besieged city was being extended.
And U.S. soldiers rolled into a base in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Monday to replace withdrawing Spanish troops and put pressure on a radical anti-American Shiite militia that controls parts of the city.
In other developments:
Witnesses said the Baghdad blast went off just after troops broke into a storefront in the one-story building in the northern Baghdad district of Waziriya. Kimmitt did not comment on the cause of the explosion.
The blast leveled the front of the building and wrecked four Humvees parked in front. Afterward, a U.S. soldier was seen being taken away in a stretcher, her chest and face severely burned.
Several Iraqis were pulled out of the wreckage, including a woman who wept as she was carried over a man's shoulder to safety.
Afterward, dozens of cheering teenagers started to smash the abandoned Humvees. A group dragged away one of the already burned-out vehicles, doused it with fuel and set it ablaze again.
The battle in Fallujah began when U.S. forces ventured into the northern districts of the city, according to CBS News Reporter Lisa Barron. Iraqis fired rocket-propelled grenades and Marines returned fire with heavy machineguns mounted on vehicles.
The Americans were pinned down by fire and called in support from helicopter gunships in the ensuing gunbattle.
U.S. officials announced Sunday that the two-week-old cease-fire in the city — which has repeatedly been broken by gun battles — would be extended for another two days.
Marines planned to begin joint patrols with Iraqi security forces through the city later this week, a step aimed at reasserting control without a full-scale assault.
The move in Najaf deploys U.S. troops within the urban area for the first time since a large force massed outside the city earlier this month to put down the Al-Mahdi Army militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
About 200 troops and Military Police rolled into the base Monday morning.
Al-Sadr's militia launched a bloody uprising on April 4, and took control of police stations and government buildings in several cities in largely Shiite southern Iraq.
Al-Sadr's gunmen left the stations and buildings a week after the uprising, but his militiamen can still be seen in the streets of Najaf and the nearby city of Kufa, carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
U.S. forces have been surrounding Najaf since shortly after the uprising but commanders have been reticent to launch an attack in which they could end up fighting militiamen hiding out in shrines and mosques that are considered sacred by Shiites.
Shiite leaders have warned of a possible explosion of anger if U.S. forces enter the holy sites. Najaf is home to the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
But the top U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, said weapons were being stockpiled in mosques, shrines and schools in Najaf and, in a message directed to residents, warned, "The coalition certainly will not tolerate this situation."