 | | 01-26-2005, 11:37 AM |
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| Deadliest day in Iraq — 36 U.S. soldiers killed
From MSNBC.com Quote: 31 die in helicopter crash; five others killed in pair of attacks
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Thirty-one U.S. troops were killed in a helicopter crash and five more died in insurgent attacks on Wednesday in the deadliest day for American forces since they invaded Iraq 22 months ago.
Guerrillas also killed 10 Iraqis in a string of bombings and raids on Wednesday. President Bush urged Iraqis to defy the insurgents, who are waging a bloody campaign to disrupt Sunday’s landmark election, a cornerstone of U.S. plans.
There were apparently no survivors among the Marines in the helicopter, who were mostly from the 1st Marine Division. A U.S. military statement said the victims, most of whom were believed to have been based at Camp Pendleton in California, were on board a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter that crashed near Ar Rutbah.
Cause of crash under investigation
According to the initial investigation, the helicopter crashed due to a mechanical failure or poor weather conditions, military officials said. Iraq was hit by severe sandstorms that grounded all military aircraft two days ago.
Bush called the crash "very discouraging" at a White House news conference, and urged Iraqis to vote in the national election Sunday and "defy these terrorists" conducting a campaign of violence aimed at disrupting the voting.
Five more killed
In two other incidents, four U.S. Marines were killed in action in western Iraq and another U.S. soldier died in a rocket-propelled grenade attack north of Baghdad, officials said.
The military gave no further details, but WABC reporter Jim Dolan, who was embedded with the Marines in western Iraq, said the deaths came when insurgents ambushed a Marine convoy leaving the town of Haditha, west of Baghdad, hitting a vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade.
The number of deaths surpassed the previous highest single day toll of the war. On March 23, 2003, the third day of the war, 28 U.S. soldiers died, most of them in fierce fighting in southern Iraq.
News of the U.S. casualties came as Iraq was engulfed in a fresh wave of violence aimed at destabilizing the nation ahead of the election.
Three car bombs exploded Wednesday in Riyadh, a tense town north of Baghdad, killing at least five people, including three policemen. One of the car bombs targeted a U.S. convoy but there was no report of casualties, police said.
In Baghdad’s Sadr City district, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops raided a Shiite mosque, detaining up to 25 followers of a radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, police and the cleric’s supporters said.
Insurgents also attacked buildings linked to Sunday’s national elections. The rebels have threatened attacks against polling centers, candidates and voters in an attempt to derail the vote. Two schools slated to be used as polling stations were bombed overnight, and a bomb was found in a third school but defused.
| Full story __________________ quaeque ipse miserrima vidi et quorum pars magna fui (All these terrible things I saw, a great part of which I was) - Virgil, The Aeneid |
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