Bombers Strike Hours Apart In Iraq
A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives at the gates of a military barracks in northern Iraq on Tuesday, injuring 41 American troops and six Iraqi civilians.
Although damage was extensive because the car exploded outside a heavily fortified military base, CBS News Correspondent Thalia Assuras reports none of the injuries were life-threatening. Most of the injuries were the result of flying debris than blast from the bomb.
Hours later another bomber blew himself up outside a U.S. Army compound just north of Baghdad. Two soldiers were lightly injured in the attack.
Elsewhere Tuesday, a U.S. helicopter made an emergency landing near the town of Fallujah west of Baghdad, apparently after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
The U.S. military said an OH-58 Kiowa observation helicopter from the 82nd Airborne Division made a "controlled landing" at 2:30 p.m. near Fallujah. A spokesman said he had no further details about the incident.
Omar Ali, a reporter with Associated Press Television News, said two helicopters were flying in formation near the city, about 35 miles west of the capital, when one was struck by a grenade fired from the ground.
It went down immediately in an open field, Ali said. The aircraft appeared structurally intact, but smoke was billowing from it.
In other recent developments:
The soldiers deaths bring to 448 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion on March 20. Of those, 308 have died as a result of hostile action.
The attack at the army base occurred at 4:45 a.m. local time when a car drove to the gate of the base in the town of Talafar, 30 miles west of the northern city of Mosul.
Guards at the gate and in a watchtower opened fire on the vehicle and moments later it blew up. The bomb left a large crater at the gate's entryway.
Col. Michael Linnington, commander of the 3rd Brigade which controls the area west of Mosul and all the way to the Syrian border, said the attack was a suicide mission and that the attacker's remains were "all over the compound."
"Right now we have four soldiers that were evacuated and are being treated for blast injuries. In addition, 37 soldiers have nicks, cuts, bruises and some broken bones," he said. A base translator was also injured in the blast, which damaged nearby homes. Several other civilians, including a 2-year-old girl, were hurt by flying glass.
The early morning blast occurred when most soldiers were still in their barracks, and there was no traffic around the gate.
Pieces of the attacker's car were scattered hundreds of meters away from the site of the blast. A school across the street from the military compound was heavily damaged, but no pupils were injured because the bomb exploded before classes began.
Hazem Ismail, a 40-year-old school teacher, said several pieces of the car hit his house, shattering the window of room where his five children were sleeping.
"The kids woke up terrified from their beds, but thank God none of them were harmed," he said.
In the attack on the compound, a man acting suspiciously walked toward the gates of the base in Husseiniya, 15 miles northeast of Baghdad, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a U.S. military spokeswoman in Tikrit. When military police guarding the gate opened fire, he activated an explosive device and blew himself up.
"A couple of soldiers were looked at, they were treated on the spot and they returned to their duties," she said.