Car explodes near checkpoint, killing three soldiers, pregnant woman and driver
By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press Writer
updated: 04/04/2003 07:37 AM
CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar (AP) -- A car exploded at a special operations checkpoint in western Iraq, killing three coalition soldiers, a pregnant woman and the car's driver, the U.S. Central Command said Friday.
Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, Central Command deputy director of operations, described the bombing as terrorist.
``These are not military actions. These are terrorist actions,'' he said
The apparent suicide attack occurred Thursday night about 11 miles southwest of the Haditha Dam. The site is northwest of Baghdad and about 80 miles east of the Syrian border.
Brooks said U.S. special operations forces were working in the region of the dam, but he declined to give further details on what forces were killed.
``A pregnant female stepped out of the vehicle and began screaming in fear,'' a Central Command statement said. ``At this point the civilian vehicle exploded, killing three coalition force members who were approaching the vehicle and wounding two others.'' The statement said the woman and the driver also were killed.
Brooks said it was impossible to know if the woman voluntarily took part in the attack.
``As coalition forces began to approach, she and the vehicle were detonated,'' Brooks said. ``Whether this woman was coerced or not, it's now impossible to say ... some parts of it will never be discovered.''
Jim Wilkinson, the spokesman at U.S. Central Command, said the incident showed the Iraqi leadership was using desperate measures to remain in power.
The Thursday attack was the second known suicide bombing to hit U.S. forces. Saturday, U.S. officials said, a man posing as a taxi driver staged a suicide attack that killed four soldiers at an Army checkpoint near Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad.
``The more desperate the regime gets, the more desperate their tactics become,'' Wilkinson said. ``This is just the latest tragic example.''
In the first suicide attack against American forces a bomber posing as a taxi driver pulled up close to a roadblock north of Najaf on Saturday, waved to American troops for help, then blew his vehicle up as they approached.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein rewarded the officer, honoring him with a posthumous promotion, two new medals and a huge financial windfall for his family.
The Iraqi government has said suicide bombings will be a ``routine military policy'' and has promised more attacks.
Troops have been on heightened alert since that attack, and have fired on civilian vehicles that have approached checkpoints.
In the deadliest incident reported so far, 11 members of the same family were killed when troops fired on their car near Najaf on Monday.
U.S. officials have said the troops have a right to defend themselves against what they call ``terrorist'' tactics by the Iraqi regime.
RE: Why the soldiers shot at the women and Children
There is no difference. She had no choice on whether she lived or died. They (the male population of that country) will use ANYTHING to preserve their misogynistic, tyrannical way of life. INCLUDING using a pregnant woman as bait. Was my post hate filled. possibly. Racist. hardly. Nowhere did I say kill them all, their kind do not need to be on this planet (e.g. Nazis you referenced). I stated there are no innocents. Which is true. In a wartime situation, in a foreign country, all people are treated as a suspect until verified friendly. The US soldiers are trying as hard as they can in a stressful environment to weed out those who are with the Sadam regime and those who are trying to escape it.
(excerpt from an article today):
South of the capital, near the city of Kut, Marines said they had accepted the surrender of about 2,500 members of the Republican Guard -- Iraq's best-trained forces, according to Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, a Central Command spokesman.
Thorp said some of the Iraqis would be held as prisoners, while others who indicated they don't want to fight will be allowed to return home. Before surrendering, Thorp said, many of the Iraqis discarded uniforms, boots and helmets in the streets.
Does that sound like people who are fighting because they want to? Sounds like they're being forced to fight by some power hungry tyrant.
(excerpt from an article today):
South of the capital, near the city of Kut, Marines said they had accepted the surrender of about 2,500 members of the Republican Guard -- Iraq's best-trained forces, according to Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, a Central Command spokesman.
Thorp said some of the Iraqis would be held as prisoners, while others who indicated they don't want to fight will be allowed to return home. Before surrendering, Thorp said, many of the Iraqis discarded uniforms, boots and helmets in the streets.
Does that sound like people who are fighting because they want to? Sounds like they're being forced to fight by some power hungry tyrant.
Ron Harris: Iraqi city warms to Marines: "Are we free yet?"
By Ron Harris Post-Dispatch
updated: 04/03/2003 10:11 PM
NUMANIYAH, Iraq - The streets of this river city came alive Thursday as residents began to adjust to the presence of hundreds of Marines who spent the day calming citizens' fears, meeting with ranking authorities, finding and destroying weapons caches and rooting out local remnants of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
Residents who had left the area before the Marines' arrival in fear of being caught in the crossfire between U.S. forces and the Republican Guard began returning to the city, repopulating what was a ghost town on Wednesday. Many anxious shopkeepers kept their storefronts shuttered, but a few opened to eager customers, who crowded the streets to buy goods and to ogle the Marines.
Old, battered automobiles chugged down narrow streets on the banks of the Tigris River, children rode bicycles and people could be seen laughing and talking in areas that were empty the day before.
Everywhere the Marines went, they were met by eager faces, smiles, thumbs up and questions.
"Are you coming to free us from Saddam?" two women asked Navy Corpsman Michah Davis, 20, of Farmington, N.M. "Are we free yet?"
The women asked Davis into their home for tea, and children and adults invited him and Gunnery Sgt. Dennis Stieber, 39, of Marathon, Wis., to come and play soccer with them.
"It really touches you," Davis said.
Lance Cpl. Kurtis Bellmont of Cold Spring, Minn., said he was overwhelmed by how friendly the people were. Like nearly every Marine, he hasn't bathed since he left Kuwait 15 days ago, and the Iraqis noticed.
"The people looked at my dirty face and they wanted to take me into their houses to wash my face, to wash our feet." Bellmont, 21, said. "I guess it's their thing. Then, they brought out tea to us.
"The biggest question I got was how soon Saddam Hussein would be gone. I got that from many different people in different parts of town."
Maj. Anthony Henderson, executive officer and second in command of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, said his battalion would probably stay in town another 24 hours to maintain control of the drawbridge that spans the Tigris River here and to clear the town of Baath Party officials.
"Things are going very well right now," said Henderson, 36, of Washington. "We've captured about 20 Iraqi officers who were hiding along the route, and it appears that the people are glad that we're here.
"If they weren't, you wouldn't see this kind of socialization, and they definitely wouldn't let their children out on the street."
The attention that the Marines continue to receive has become a security concern as the men try to establish safe defensive positions and watch out for possible suicide bombings and other attacks from those still loyal to Saddam. They are constantly warning residents to stay away from their bases and shooing curious children from their site.
At Lima Company's encampment at a soccer field on the southwest side of the city, a recorded message blares from loudspeakers periodically.
But despite the Marines' protestation, excited children, generous teens and those hoping to sell the men cigarettes still hang around outside the yellow brick walls of their base.
Marines have established a 7 p.m. curfew in the town for security purposes.
Working with an Army unit attached to the Marines, Kuwaiti interpreter Hassam Murafie said residents he interviewed have named 35 Baath Party officials who are hiding in the city. Using an Iraqi informer wearing a hood to protect his identity, Marines snatched 10 Baath Party members in the middle of a meeting and turned them over to an interrogation team.
On Thursday, Marines continued to find caches of weapons throughout the city.
Army Sgt. Jim Stiffey of Pittsburgh said he and his men searched a kindergarten and two homes and found rocket launchers, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, mortar ammunition and AK-47 machine gun rounds.
"There was even more stuff that we knew about, but we just didn't have the space and the manpower to deal with it at the time," Stiffey, 23, said.
Marine Staff Sgt. Matthew St. Pierre of Vallejo, Calif., and his platoon found rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, anti-aircraft guns and rounds, land mines, grenades, Iraqi uniforms and helmets at three houses.
"We just showed up and the people in town just took us right to them," said St. Pierre, 28.
Police "will be in control"
In another part of town, Maj. Frank Simone and Capt. Ezra Carbins of the Marines' Civil Affairs Group, met with police officials at a sparse, drab facility shared by the local police, the Iraqi secret police and the mayor.
Through an interpreter, the men interviewed police Capt. Aoda Aoweed and Assistant Police Chief Eahab Ahmed. The men, dressed in civilian clothes and unarmed, told them that about 19 officers served this town of about 30,000.
"If we need to arrest someone, we just go to their house and they come in" to the police station, Ahmed said.
Most of police were afraid of the Americans and afraid to come to the station, the men said. When the Marines arrived, they found four men inside the facility and made them lie in the dust at gunpoint. Aoweed and Ahmed told the Marines later that the men were police officers.
Simone assured the police that they wanted to turn the city back over to them.
"Tell them that our goal is for them to organize their police force so that when we leave, they will be in control," he told the interpreter.
Outside the facility, the heavy booms of Marine artillery thundered through the city, frightening residents. The artillery was supporting two Marine battalions that crossed the Tigris Wednesday and turned south Thursday to battle an Iraqi brigade in Kut.
Simone and Carbins left the police station for the mayor's house, where they broke through a door and forced their way in. No one was there. They searched the facility and found only food, a case of 7-Up and Spartan furnishing.
"I've seen crack houses that look better than this," Simone said.
As they were leaving, they were approached by a man who explained that the mayor was away and he tended the home in the mayor's absence.
Smoking with the sheik
Finally, the two Marines and their team visited the local sheik, the coveted and highly respected senior elder for the town.
He invited them into a large living room filled with ornate furniture with gold cloth seats and backs. As the Marines took their places, the room quickly filled with nearly 20 of the sheik's assistants, as well as the curious.
Helpers served cigarettes, tea and cookies to Simone, Carbins and two other Marines as the officers explained their mission.
"Tell him that we came to see him to show him our respect," Carbins said.
The sheik, a slim, elderly dark-skinned man dressed in a blue robe and black and white headdress, puffed slowly on his cigarette and listened intently.
He expressed concern that two young girls had been killed by Marine helicopter fire in advance of the Marines' assault on the city.
"Please explain to him that we didn't target the Iraqi people," Simone said.
Some of the sheik's assistants asked if the Marines could help get the gas station owners to reopen their shops and talked about getting electricity working in certain areas of the city.
After a 30-minute meeting, there were smiles and handshakes as the Marines wove through the even larger crowd on their way to their Humvee.
"I thank you for visiting me," the sheik said. "I'm proud of you."
By Ron Harris Post-Dispatch
updated: 04/03/2003 10:11 PM
NUMANIYAH, Iraq - The streets of this river city came alive Thursday as residents began to adjust to the presence of hundreds of Marines who spent the day calming citizens' fears, meeting with ranking authorities, finding and destroying weapons caches and rooting out local remnants of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
Residents who had left the area before the Marines' arrival in fear of being caught in the crossfire between U.S. forces and the Republican Guard began returning to the city, repopulating what was a ghost town on Wednesday. Many anxious shopkeepers kept their storefronts shuttered, but a few opened to eager customers, who crowded the streets to buy goods and to ogle the Marines.
Old, battered automobiles chugged down narrow streets on the banks of the Tigris River, children rode bicycles and people could be seen laughing and talking in areas that were empty the day before.
Everywhere the Marines went, they were met by eager faces, smiles, thumbs up and questions.
"Are you coming to free us from Saddam?" two women asked Navy Corpsman Michah Davis, 20, of Farmington, N.M. "Are we free yet?"
The women asked Davis into their home for tea, and children and adults invited him and Gunnery Sgt. Dennis Stieber, 39, of Marathon, Wis., to come and play soccer with them.
"It really touches you," Davis said.
Lance Cpl. Kurtis Bellmont of Cold Spring, Minn., said he was overwhelmed by how friendly the people were. Like nearly every Marine, he hasn't bathed since he left Kuwait 15 days ago, and the Iraqis noticed.
"The people looked at my dirty face and they wanted to take me into their houses to wash my face, to wash our feet." Bellmont, 21, said. "I guess it's their thing. Then, they brought out tea to us.
"The biggest question I got was how soon Saddam Hussein would be gone. I got that from many different people in different parts of town."
Maj. Anthony Henderson, executive officer and second in command of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, said his battalion would probably stay in town another 24 hours to maintain control of the drawbridge that spans the Tigris River here and to clear the town of Baath Party officials.
"Things are going very well right now," said Henderson, 36, of Washington. "We've captured about 20 Iraqi officers who were hiding along the route, and it appears that the people are glad that we're here.
"If they weren't, you wouldn't see this kind of socialization, and they definitely wouldn't let their children out on the street."
The attention that the Marines continue to receive has become a security concern as the men try to establish safe defensive positions and watch out for possible suicide bombings and other attacks from those still loyal to Saddam. They are constantly warning residents to stay away from their bases and shooing curious children from their site.
At Lima Company's encampment at a soccer field on the southwest side of the city, a recorded message blares from loudspeakers periodically.
But despite the Marines' protestation, excited children, generous teens and those hoping to sell the men cigarettes still hang around outside the yellow brick walls of their base.
Marines have established a 7 p.m. curfew in the town for security purposes.
Working with an Army unit attached to the Marines, Kuwaiti interpreter Hassam Murafie said residents he interviewed have named 35 Baath Party officials who are hiding in the city. Using an Iraqi informer wearing a hood to protect his identity, Marines snatched 10 Baath Party members in the middle of a meeting and turned them over to an interrogation team.
On Thursday, Marines continued to find caches of weapons throughout the city.
Army Sgt. Jim Stiffey of Pittsburgh said he and his men searched a kindergarten and two homes and found rocket launchers, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, mortar ammunition and AK-47 machine gun rounds.
"There was even more stuff that we knew about, but we just didn't have the space and the manpower to deal with it at the time," Stiffey, 23, said.
Marine Staff Sgt. Matthew St. Pierre of Vallejo, Calif., and his platoon found rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, anti-aircraft guns and rounds, land mines, grenades, Iraqi uniforms and helmets at three houses.
"We just showed up and the people in town just took us right to them," said St. Pierre, 28.
Police "will be in control"
In another part of town, Maj. Frank Simone and Capt. Ezra Carbins of the Marines' Civil Affairs Group, met with police officials at a sparse, drab facility shared by the local police, the Iraqi secret police and the mayor.
Through an interpreter, the men interviewed police Capt. Aoda Aoweed and Assistant Police Chief Eahab Ahmed. The men, dressed in civilian clothes and unarmed, told them that about 19 officers served this town of about 30,000.
"If we need to arrest someone, we just go to their house and they come in" to the police station, Ahmed said.
Most of police were afraid of the Americans and afraid to come to the station, the men said. When the Marines arrived, they found four men inside the facility and made them lie in the dust at gunpoint. Aoweed and Ahmed told the Marines later that the men were police officers.
Simone assured the police that they wanted to turn the city back over to them.
"Tell them that our goal is for them to organize their police force so that when we leave, they will be in control," he told the interpreter.
Outside the facility, the heavy booms of Marine artillery thundered through the city, frightening residents. The artillery was supporting two Marine battalions that crossed the Tigris Wednesday and turned south Thursday to battle an Iraqi brigade in Kut.
Simone and Carbins left the police station for the mayor's house, where they broke through a door and forced their way in. No one was there. They searched the facility and found only food, a case of 7-Up and Spartan furnishing.
"I've seen crack houses that look better than this," Simone said.
As they were leaving, they were approached by a man who explained that the mayor was away and he tended the home in the mayor's absence.
Smoking with the sheik
Finally, the two Marines and their team visited the local sheik, the coveted and highly respected senior elder for the town.
He invited them into a large living room filled with ornate furniture with gold cloth seats and backs. As the Marines took their places, the room quickly filled with nearly 20 of the sheik's assistants, as well as the curious.
Helpers served cigarettes, tea and cookies to Simone, Carbins and two other Marines as the officers explained their mission.
"Tell him that we came to see him to show him our respect," Carbins said.
The sheik, a slim, elderly dark-skinned man dressed in a blue robe and black and white headdress, puffed slowly on his cigarette and listened intently.
He expressed concern that two young girls had been killed by Marine helicopter fire in advance of the Marines' assault on the city.
"Please explain to him that we didn't target the Iraqi people," Simone said.
Some of the sheik's assistants asked if the Marines could help get the gas station owners to reopen their shops and talked about getting electricity working in certain areas of the city.
After a 30-minute meeting, there were smiles and handshakes as the Marines wove through the even larger crowd on their way to their Humvee.
"I thank you for visiting me," the sheik said. "I'm proud of you."
and what do you think the possibilities are that this woman was in on this suicide bombing? maybe she wanted to be a decoy. It may be hard for us westerners to understand but there's always mulitple sides to every story
I can't wait until the day schools are over-funded and the military is forced to hold bake sales to buy planes.
"It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about"
"It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about"
Don't you find that a bit disturbing? Naming their children after Saddam? Why? So he'll go easy on them? Would you be impressed if hundreds of couples started naming their children George Bush?
<img src="http://www.clumsymonkey.net/phpBB2/download.php?id=4500">
#define QUESTION (bb || !bb) --william shakespeare
#define QUESTION (bb || !bb) --william shakespeare
these are the same women that were shown on Iraqi TV holding machine guns in front of an Iraqi flag proclaiming that they are willing to die for their cause in the shape of suicide bombing.
Whenever death may surprise us,
let it be welcome
if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear
and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.
Nobody's gonna miss me, no tears will fall, no ones gonna weap, when i hit that road.
my boots are broken my brain is sore, fer keepin' up with thier little world, i got a heavy load.
gonna leave 'em all just like before, i'm big city bound, your always 17 in your hometown
let it be welcome
if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear
and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.
Nobody's gonna miss me, no tears will fall, no ones gonna weap, when i hit that road.
my boots are broken my brain is sore, fer keepin' up with thier little world, i got a heavy load.
gonna leave 'em all just like before, i'm big city bound, your always 17 in your hometown
-
happening fish
- Oskar Winner: 2006
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- Joined: 3/17/2002, 11:22 am
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starvingeyes
- Oskar Winner: 2007
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happeninfish wrote:Kinda like the Americans who stand in front of the US flag in uniform and proclaim that they are willing to die for their cause in the shape of fatally dangerous attacks? I don't really see your point here...?
my point is the enemy is taking the shape and form of different individuals. your right the US is wearing uniforms, where as these people are plain clothed. Iraq makes it look like all we're doing is killing civilians when in all actuality they are enemy.
Whenever death may surprise us,
let it be welcome
if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear
and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.
Nobody's gonna miss me, no tears will fall, no ones gonna weap, when i hit that road.
my boots are broken my brain is sore, fer keepin' up with thier little world, i got a heavy load.
gonna leave 'em all just like before, i'm big city bound, your always 17 in your hometown
let it be welcome
if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear
and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.
Nobody's gonna miss me, no tears will fall, no ones gonna weap, when i hit that road.
my boots are broken my brain is sore, fer keepin' up with thier little world, i got a heavy load.
gonna leave 'em all just like before, i'm big city bound, your always 17 in your hometown
-
happening fish
- Oskar Winner: 2006
- Posts: 17934
- Joined: 3/17/2002, 11:22 am
Killing is killing is killing.
I like this paragraph:
""I don't like Saddam Hussein at all," said Odeh, whose husband is a Jordanian policeman. "But because his soldiers are resisting the Americans, I've started to like him." She says she takes no pleasure from the reports of killed and captured American soldiers, and says the Iraqis should be left in peace. "They need to start a war to get of rid of Saddam?" she asks. "This is the most powerful country in the world we're talking about. I think they could have found another way." She says it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Bush administration has bigger plans than liberating Iraqis."
I like this paragraph:
""I don't like Saddam Hussein at all," said Odeh, whose husband is a Jordanian policeman. "But because his soldiers are resisting the Americans, I've started to like him." She says she takes no pleasure from the reports of killed and captured American soldiers, and says the Iraqis should be left in peace. "They need to start a war to get of rid of Saddam?" she asks. "This is the most powerful country in the world we're talking about. I think they could have found another way." She says it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Bush administration has bigger plans than liberating Iraqis."
awkward is the new cool
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