Iraqi resistance wipes out entire squad of Marines
The explosion enveloped the armored vehicle in flames, sending orange balls of fire bubbling above the trees along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.
Marines in surrounding vehicles threw open their hatches and took off running across the plowed fields, toward the already blackening metal of the destroyed vehicle. Shouting, they pulled to safety those they could, as the flames ignited the bullets, mortar rounds, flares and grenades inside, rocketing them into the sky and across pastures.
Gunnery Sgt. Chuck Hurley emerged from the smoke and turmoil around the vehicle, circling toward the spot where helicopters would later land to pick up casualties. As he passed one group of Marines, he uttered just one sentence: “That was the same squad.”
Among the four Marines killed and 10 wounded when an explosive device erupted under their amtrac on Wednesday were the last battle-ready members of a squad that four days earlier had battled foreign fighters holed up in a house in the town of Ubaydi. In that fight, two squad members were killed and five wounded.
In 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, the squad had ceased to be.
Every member of the squad–one of three that make up the 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment–had been killed or wounded, Marines here said. All told, the 1st Platoon, which Hurley commands, had sustained 60 percent casualties, demolishing it as a fighting force.
“They used to call it Lucky Lima,” said Maj. Steve Lawson, commander of the company. “That turned around and bit us.”
Attacks kill 69 in Iraq, Iraqi General assassinated
A car bomb exploded near a market in eastern Baghdad, killing at least six people and wounding 13, said police 1st Lt. Mazin Saeed. The blast also set some shops on fire in the New Baghdad area of the capital and destroyed 10 cars parked nearby, he said.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, suspected insurgents shot and killed Brig. Gen. Iyad Imad Mahdi as he drove to work at the Ministry of Defense. Col. Fadhil Muhammed Mobarak was shot and killed as he traveled to the Interior Ministry, where he led its police control room, police said.
Two car bombs also exploded in the northern city of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, police said. One blast occurred near a Shiite mosque, killing two people and wounding two, said police Capt. Sarhad Talabani.
The other exploded at a site where explosives experts were dismantling a roadside bomb that residents had found, said police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qader. Two of the experts were wounded by the blast, which also destroyed nearby vehicles, Qader said.
In Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, a suicide car bomb exploded in a small market near a police station, killing at least 33 people and injuring 92, police and hospital officials said. The attacker swerved into a crowd of day laborers waiting to be picked up for work at construction sites after heavy security prevented the vehicle from reaching the station, police said.
About 90 minutes later, in Hawija, a town 150 miles north of Baghdad, a man with hidden explosives slipped past security guards at a police and army recruitment center and blew himself up outside the building where applicants were lined up. At least 30 people were killed and 35 injured, police said.
In western Baghdad, gunmen clashed with a police patrol on a highway, killing one officer and wounding another.Another bomb exploded at Iraq’s largest fertilizer plant in the southern city of Basra, killing one person and wounding 23, police and employees said. The blast set fire to a gas pipeline and destroyed about 60 percent of the plant.
Iraqi government in action
Meanwhile, the US military and the New Iraqi Parliamenttm are squabbling over who gets a building in Baghdad.
National assembly members have long requested a meeting hall protected by Iraqis, but the campaign picked up speed after a tearful legislator appeared before the body last month to recount how U.S. soldiers had manhandled him at a checkpoint leading into the Green Zone. Spurred on by outraged legislators, the speaker of the assembly threatened to suspend meetings until they found an alternative venue.
Around the same time, a committee led by Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial politician who’s now deputy prime minister, was searching for a suitable site outside the Green Zone. They spotted the rose-colored building next door. Chalabi and other committee members took a tour of the grounds, praised the renovations and announced their findings to their fellow lawmakers:
“All the building needs now is furniture, and we can install that within a week,” a confident Chalabi told the assembly.
Legislators voted in favor of the move, infuriating U.S. and Iraqi defense officials. They weren’t about to let go of the building without a fight, said one senior Iraqi defense official who was present when Chalabi took his tour. He didn’t want his name published for fear of inflaming sensitivities surrounding the issue.
“If Chalabi comes back, we’ll shoot him,” the angry official said in jest.