Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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 Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:35 pm Post subject: U.S. military: Suicide bomb kills 9 U.S. soldiers in Iraq |
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The surge is working like a charm. With this attack April is now the deadliest month for coalition troops since December 2006, and there's still 1 week left.
Go Bush!
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Nine U.S. soldiers were killed Monday when a suicide car bomb struck near their patrol base in Diyala province, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Twenty other U.S. soldiers and one Iraqi civilian were wounded in the attack, the statement said.
Earlier, in a separate incident, the military said a U.S. soldier was killed in Muqtadya, northeast of Baghdad, by a roadside bomb.
Muqtadya is a city in Diyala province located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of the provincial capital of Baquba.
Earlier Monday, a suicide car bomber targeted a gathering of police vehicles in Baquba, killing six police officers, including a police general, a Diyala province police official said.
Despite the daily attacks across Iraq, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Monday to protest a concrete wall surrounding Adhamiya, a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad.
The U.S. and Iraqi militaries say the wall is a temporary structure to prevent insurgent attacks.
But many Baghdad residents fear walls will exacerbate the sectarian divide that is fueling the insurgency in the Iraqi capital. (Watch why the wall was controversial Video)
"The aim of this wall is to isolate Adhamiya," one resident told CNN. "It's a step we think that is not for the good of the people, but it's to isolate them like Falluja and other Sunni cities."
Police estimated 7,000 Iraqis peacefully took to the street to voice their disapproval with the wall around Adhamiya, a Sunni enclave surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods.
Video showed the streets crowded with demonstrators, some carrying banners that read in English, "No to the sectarian barrier."
While it is a known insurgent stronghold, Adhamiya has also been the target of Shiite death squads.
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki expressed outrage, saying "the construction will stop."
In response, the U.S. military issued a statement Monday saying "the construction of the wall is under review" and vowing to "coordinate with the Iraq government to establish effective appropriate security measures."
But at a joint news conference later Monday, spokesmen for the U.S. and Iraqi militaries said there are no plans to stop erecting the security barriers, which they stressed are temporary.
The spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta said al-Maliki was responding to "groundless" media reports that a permanent wall -- 40 feet (12 meters) high and 3 miles (5 kilometers) long -- is being constructed.
"The prime minister is in agreement with the work of the security forces and the issue of security barriers," Atta said at the news conference in Baghdad. "We will continue to set up these barriers in Adhamiya and other areas."
A combination of sand barriers, trenches, barbed wire and concrete barriers will be put in place temporarily to secure certain areas within the 10 Baghdad security districts, Atta said. They will be moved after each area is secure, he said.
"We have noticed a big drop in terrorist attacks in areas where we already set up these security barriers," he said.
The U.S. and Iraqi militaries have started setting up security barriers in Baladiyat, Zafaraniya, al-Shu'la, Baya'a, Adhamiya, and the outskirts of Sadr City, Atta said.
"It's a fluid situation and none of these barriers that we're erecting are permanent," U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox said during Monday's news conference. "We will be able to employ them as necessary."
At a news conference in Cairo on Sunday, al-Maliki said he expressed his "fear (that) this wall might have repercussions, which remind us of other walls we reject."
He was apparently referring to the wall Israel constructed in the West Bank, and to the wall that divided Berlin during the Cold War.
49 killed in insurgent attacks
Insurgents targeted Iraqis eating at restaurants, police patrolling the cities, a Kurdish political office and a Sunni mosque in a string of attacks in Iraq on Monday that left at least 49 people dead and 93 wounded, according to Iraqi officials.
The deadliest attack happened when a suicide car bomber struck a restaurant in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killing 20 civilians and wounding 35, an Interior Ministry official said.
Earlier, a suicide car bomber struck a police checkpoint just outside Ramadi, killing four and wounding six civilians and police, a police official said.
In Baghdad, seven people were killed and 16 were wounded when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest inside a restaurant near the Green Zone, Baghdad police said.
The restaurant, which is near a police station, is frequented by Baghdad police officers.
About a half-mile away from the restaurant, two parked car bombs struck an area near Iran's embassy within hours of each other, police said.
One Iraqi civilian was killed and another was hurt in the first attack, which happened around noon in a parking lot about 200 yards from Iran's embassy.
The second car bomb detonated in the same area at 4:30 p.m., wounding two police officers, an interior ministry official said. The bomb was targeting an Iraqi police patrol.
Insurgents also bombed a Sunni mosque in the southwestern Baghdad neighborhood of al-Baya'a, killing the mosque's guard to gain entry, then rigging the mosque with explosives, an Interior Ministry official said. No one was injured in the bombing, but the al-Kawthar mosque was damaged, the official said.
Outside the northern city of Mosul, a suicide car bomb detonated outside the Kurdish Democratic Party office in Tal Uskuf, killing at least 10 people and wounding 20, according to KDP official Abdul Ghani Yahya.
In the southern city of Basra, insurgents opened fire on an armored vehicle on routine patrol, killing one British soldier, according to the British Ministry of Defense. |
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/23/iraq.main/index.html |
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