U.S. Soldier Dies in Kirkuk; Blast Kills 9 Iraqis Near Baghdad
Friday, September 26, 2003
AP
BAQOUBA, Iraq - A mortar blast tore through a market north of Baghdad, killing
nine civilians and injuring more than a dozen others, Iraqi police said Friday.
Townspeople suspected American soldiers stationed nearby may have been the
target.
Also Friday, the U.S. military said an American soldier was killed in an ambush
in Kirkuk (search). Amid the continuing violence, the United Nations announced
it was cutting its staff in Baghdad, and Iraqis prepared to bury an assassinated
member of the country's Governing Council.
The mortar round exploded about 9 p.m. Thursday at a market in this Sunni Muslim
city about 30 miles north of Baghdad. Police Gen. Waleed Khalid said nine
civilians died and 15 were wounded. U.S. officials put the injured figure at 18.
Khalid described the attack as a "criminal act aimed at hurting Iraqi
civilians." However, several townspeople, who spoke on condition they not be
identified, said they believed the target was a government building about 250
yards away, where U.S. soldiers stay.
About 20 U.S. soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division (search) were at the blast
site Friday, providing security and assisting Iraqi police in the investigation.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military said one soldier from the 173rd Airborne Brigade
(search) was killed and two others were wounded during an ambush in northern
Iraq. The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Thursday when a rocket-propelled
grenade was fired at their vehicle. The names of the victims were withheld
pending notification of kin.
The death raised to 86 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire since
May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq. The military
also announced that a soldier from the 4th Infantry Division died and another
was injured in a fire Thursday night in an abandoned building in the Tikrit
area. No further details were released.
The flag-draped coffin carrying the body of Aquila al-Hashimi (search), a member
of the Iraqi Governing Council, arrived Friday for burial in the Shiite Muslim
holy city of Najaf one day after she died of wounds suffered in an ambush near
her Baghdad home on Sept. 20.
Al-Hashimi, a Shiite Muslim, was the first member of the council targeted for
assassination and was the leading candidate to become Iraq's ambassador to the
United Nations. She was to have attended the annual meeting of the U.N. General
Assembly in New York this week.
The council declared three days of mourning that began Thursday. In a written
statement, it said al-Hashimi "fell as a martyr on the path of freedom and
democracy to build this great nation. She died at the hands of a clique of
infidels and cunning people who only know darkness."
The current council president, Ahmad Chalabi, blamed her death on Saddam
loyalists.
Al-Hashimi died on a day when violence blamed on opponents of the U.S.-led
occupation targeted both Iraqis and foreigners alike. Early Thursday, a bomb
damaged a hotel housing the offices of NBC News, raising fears of attacks
against international media. A Somali guard was killed and an NBC sound engineer
was slightly wounded in the early morning explosion at the small al-Aike Hotel
in the city's fashionable Karrada district.
The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, has warned he
would use whatever force necessary to defeat those who attack American soldiers.
The inability of the U.S.-led coalition to stop the violence was behind a
decision Thursday by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to order a further
reduction of U.N. international staff in Iraq. Annan's order came days after the
second bombing outside U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on Monday killed an Iraqi
policeman and injured 19 others.
The first bombing, on Aug. 19, killed 22 people at the Baghdad headquarters. At
that time, about 300 international staff were in Baghdad and another 300
elsewhere in Iraq, and Annan ordered the number reduced to 42 in Baghdad and 44
in the north.
U.S. spokesman Fred Eckhard said he did not know how many of the 86 remaining
international staffers would leave for Amman, Jordan, under the latest order.
They are to depart within the next two days.
"This is not an evacuation, just a further downsizing and the security situation
in the country remains under constant review," Eckhard said.
In Baghdad, U.N. spokeswoman Veronique Taveau insisted that the United Nations
was not abandoning the Iraqi people.
"Security in Iraq is really a concern for us but we are committed to work with
the Iraqi population," she said Friday. "As soon as the situation improves in
Iraq, we will ask them to come back but we have still some international staff
here and we are working. We are working but we are assessing the situation on a
daily basis."
The new cuts were announced as the Security Council debates a new resolution the
United States hopes will bring new troops and money to Iraq. Opponents of the
U.S.-led war in Iraq - including France, Germany and Russia - are calling for
the United Nations to take over the political transition and are demanding a
speedier timetable for the handover of power than the United States has
proposed.
Bush is struggling to win international support for a U.N. resolution designed
to bring fresh peacekeeping troops and financial support.
--
"Naturally, the common people don't want war;
neither in Russia nor in England nor in America,
nor for that matter in Germany.
That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders
of the country who determine the policy and
it is always a simple matter to drag the people
along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist
dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same way
in any country."
- Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall
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