Iraqis Cheer Crash of British Helicopter
By BUSHRA JUHI
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A British military helicopter crashed in Basra on
Saturday, and Iraqis hurled stones at British troops and set fire to
three armored vehicles that rushed to the scene. Clashes broke out
between British troops and Shiite militias, police and witnesses said.
Police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim said the helicopter was apparently shot
down in a residential district. He said the four-member crew was
killed, but British officials would say only that there were
``casualties.''
British forces backed by armored vehicles rushed to the area but were
met by a hail of stones from the crowd of at least 250 people, who
jumped for joy and raised their fists as a plume of thick smoke rose
into the air from the crash site.
The crowd set three British armored vehicles on fire, apparently with
gasoline bombs and a rocket-propelled grenade, but the soldiers inside
escaped unhurt, witnesses said.
British troops shot into the air trying to disperse the crowd, then
shooting broke out between the British and Iraqi militiamen, Khazim
said. At least four people, including a child, were killed and 31
wounded, he said. Two of the fatalities were adults shot by British
troops while driving a car in the area, Khazim said.
The crowd chanted ``we are all soldiers of al-Sayed,'' a reference to
radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an ardent foe of the presence of
foreign troops in Iraq.
Later the crowd scattered after hearing explosion, but groups of men
set fire to tires in the streets and the situation remained tense. The
chaotic scene was widely shown on Iraqi state television and on the
Al-Jazeera satellite station.
The attack on the helicopter came at a difficult time for the
government of Prime Minister Tony Blair in Britain, where many people
oppose the U.S.-led Iraq war.
After a poor showing by his Labour Party in local elections this week,
Blair overhauled his Cabinet, ousting Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's
following rumors that he and Blair had differed on issues including
Iraq. Straw reportedly had expressed doubts about the Iraq war to his
boss.
In violence elsewhere, a suicide bomber wearing an Iraqi army uniform
entered an Iraqi base in Tikrit and detonated an explosives belt,
killing an Iraqi lieutenant colonel, a major and a lieutenant and
wounding a lieutenant colonel, said the Iraqi Defense Ministry
spokesman, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed Jassim.
The U.S. command also announced that an American soldier was killed by
the roadside bomb in Baghdad on Friday. At least 2,417 members of the
U=2ES. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003.
Britain has about 8,000 soldiers based in the mostly Shiite Basra area.
Southern Iraq has long been much less violent than Baghdad and western
Iraq where Sunni Arab-led insurgents and al-Qaida in Iraq launch many
attacks against Iraqi civilians and U.S. and Iraqi forces.
But Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shiite religious leader, hasn't
always been able to keep growing anti-coalition fervor among Shiite
radicals under control.
In September, British forces arrested two officials of the Mahdi Army,
the Shiite militia loyal to al-Sadr, raising tensions in Basra. About a
week later, militiamen and residents clashed with British troops after
two soldiers disguised as Arabs were detained by Iraqi authorities.
British forces launched a raid to free the men and an Iraqi judge
issued a homicide warrant for their arrest. British officials said the
warrant was illegal under Iraqi law and their personnel were immune to
prosecution in Iraq.
The bomber in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit targeted a group of
Iraqi army recruits who had just finished their training and were being
dispatched to another area of Iraq, Jassim said. Officials in Tikrit
said the bomber apparently told guards that he wanted to see one of the
officers and was admitted to the base without being searched.
The attack in the Sunni Arab city 80 miles north of Baghdad appeared to
be part of a campaign by Sunni-led insurgents to discourage Sunnis from
joining Iraqi security forces. The Bush administration hopes that newly
trained Iraqi soldiers and police can one day improve security in Iraq
enough to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from the country.
In a bid to counter the U.S. efforts, Sunni militants have targeted
Sunnis who cooperate with the government, including Iraqi army and
police.
A roadside bomb also exploded Saturday near a Polish convoy in
Diwaniyah south of Baghdad, wounding three soldiers, Poland's Defense
Ministry said. Poland has about 900 soldiers in south-central Iraq,
where it commands an international force.
In other developments Saturday:
Fighting between an Iraqi military patrol and insurgents killed two
soldiers and three militants in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad.
A bomb in a parked car exploded, killing two policemen and an Iraqi
soldier and wounding four civilians about 30 miles north of Baqouba,
police said.
Suspected insurgents kidnapped seven Iraqis, including three
paramilitary policemen, south of Baghdad in an area where a roadside
bomb killed three U.S. service members the day before.
Roadside bombs hit two Iraqi police patrols in Baghdad, killing one
officer and wounding two policemen and six civilians.
Two rockets or mortar shells were fired in northern Baghdad, one
hitting a home and killing two children and wounding a woman.
Police in Baghdad found the bodies of 13 Iraqi men, five of them
relatives from Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, who had been kidnapped and
brutally killed, police said.
A drive-by shooting killed two brothers in Baghdad, police Capt. Firas
Queti said.
A roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul wounded two Iraqi
policemen. Police also found the bullet-ridden bodies of a father and
son who had been kidnapped earlier in the day.
Iraqi and U.S. forces searched shops for weapons and imposed a curfew
in Rawah, a Sunni city 175 miles northwest of Baghdad.
05/06/06 11:57 =A9 Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The information contained In this news report may not be published,
broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority
of The Associated Press.
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| User: "Satan" |
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| Title: Re: Iraqis Cheer Crash of British Helicopter |
06 May 2006 10:51:12 PM |
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***** you wrote:
Iraqis Cheer Crash of British Helicopter
By BUSHRA JUHI
BBC reported today that many Basra street protestors were laughing and
shouting, "Shock and awe to you murderers!"
A lesson to be learned -- when an invading empire sickly revels in its
capacity to mass murder, deceives and manipulates, and has its
population emotionally numbed to the massive cost to innocent
civilians, it creates a hellacious environment of perpetual
counter-mass murder, insanity, and hatred.
I should know.
Satan >;)~
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| User: "God The Almighty" |
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| Title: Re: Iraqis Cheer Crash of British Helicopter |
09 May 2006 12:45:16 PM |
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And I should know too. After all, I was the one that created you Satan!!
You are part of me, and I, a part of you....
"Satan" <francm@mail.com> wrote in message
news:1146973872.518412.204010@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
***** you wrote:
Iraqis Cheer Crash of British Helicopter
By BUSHRA JUHI
BBC reported today that many Basra street protestors were laughing and
shouting, "Shock and awe to you murderers!"
A lesson to be learned -- when an invading empire sickly revels in its
capacity to mass murder, deceives and manipulates, and has its
population emotionally numbed to the massive cost to innocent
civilians, it creates a hellacious environment of perpetual
counter-mass murder, insanity, and hatred.
I should know.
Satan >;)~
.
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| User: "Satan" |
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| Title: Re: Iraqis Cheer Crash of British Helicopter |
10 May 2006 11:21:17 PM |
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God The Almighty wrote:
And I should know too. After all, I was the one that created you Satan!!
You are part of me, and I, a part of you....
You make a lousy tango partner. Your ridiculous long white flowing robe
keeps tripping you up on the dance floor.
Satan >:)~
"Satan" <francm@mail.com> wrote in message
news:1146973872.518412.204010@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
***** you wrote:
Iraqis Cheer Crash of British Helicopter
By BUSHRA JUHI
BBC reported today that many Basra street protestors were laughing and
shouting, "Shock and awe to you murderers!"
A lesson to be learned -- when an invading empire sickly revels in its
capacity to mass murder, deceives and manipulates, and has its
population emotionally numbed to the massive cost to innocent
civilians, it creates a hellacious environment of perpetual
counter-mass murder, insanity, and hatred.
I should know.
Satan >;)~
.
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