US army suffers heavy casualties in Iraqi ambush

sept 18-2003

KHALDIYAH, Iraq (AFP) - A US convoy took heavy casualties in an ambush, witnesses said, as Iraq erupted in a spate of anti-US attacks after the release of another purported message from Saddam Hussein .

No official toll was available from the mid-afternoon incident but the witnesses reported seeing between four and eight badly burned US soldiers pulled out of one military vehicle engulfed in flames.



Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television said in an unconfirmed report that eight Americans were killed when the convoy hit a roadside bomb and was pelted with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) as its limped to a nearby base.

The attack was the latest in a Sunni flashpoint area west of Baghdad. It came amid a series of assaults on US troops around the country after release Wednesday of an alleged tape by Saddam exhorting Iraqis to renewed resistance.

The US military said Thursday two soldiers were wounded in an attack near the town of Ramadi west of Khaldiyah, but would not confirm reports of heavy casualties in the same general area.

US soldiers also shot up a car belonging to the US news agency Associated Press when its reporters tried to film a burning vehicle in Khaldiyah, the AP staffers said. The two reporters and driver, all Iraqis, were unhurt.

Some 300 Iraqi demonstrators celebrated the attack on the convoy, brandishing bits of American vehicles, hoisting portraits of Saddam and pledging to die for the dictator ousted by US-led forces in April.

"With our blood, with our soul, we will sacrifice for you O Saddam" and "Saddam is the glory of my country," they chanted. Others danced joyously around at least two US vehicles swallowed by flames and thick black smoke.

Witnesses in Khaldiyah, 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad, said the attack was triggered by a bomb that went off underneath an American vehicle that caught fire with about 10 US soldiers inside.

Mahmud Ali saw eight burned troops taken from the bombed vehicle hit while the convoy was passing through Khaldiyah en route from the town of Fallujah toward Ramadi. Yusuf Ali, 40, no relation, said he saw four victims.

"A bomb exploded underneath a troop transport. It caught fire. The remainder of the convoy tried to continue and was hit by rocket-propelled grenades 500 meters (yards) away," said Mahmud Ali.

The Americans tried to seal off the road and call in reinforcements but the convoy was hit at least twice by RPGs as it continued on its way toward a nearby base. At least one other vehicle was set ablaze.

A US helicopter circled the area, apparently poised to evacuate the wounded but did not land, the witnesses said. A loud explosion was heard in the town towards late afternoon and another in the evening but there was no report of damage or casualties.

US military officials would not discuss reports of heavy casualties, saying only that two soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were wounded and three vehicles damaged by a bomb and small-arms attack near Ramadi.

US soldiers also reported a loud explosion near a bank in Ramadi Thursday evening, but said there were no injuries. No further details were immediately available.

The Khaldiyah attacks occurred a day after hospital officials in nearby Fallujah said US soldiers had killed an Iraqi teenager and wounded six other people after becoming spooked by celebratory gunfire at a wedding.

That incident further fueled tensions in the town where US soldiers shot dead nine Iraqi security officers last Friday in a "friendly fire" incident.

--------- 

But the Khaldiyah ambush was only one of a series of attacks on US forces Thursday.

Six mortar rounds were fired at Baghdad international airport at 3:00 pm (1100 GMT), said US army spokesman Sergeant Mark Ingham. He gave no further details.

A US army base in Samarra, 110 kilometres (65 miles) north of Baghdad, was also hit by mortar fire on Thursday, Ingham added. No one was wounded and no vehicles were damaged in that incident.

In the northern city of Mosul, US troops came under a series of grenade and rocket attacks that began shortly before midnight and targeted a position at the entrance to the city, a restaurant and a hotel.

The US military confirmed one incident, saying that five rockets hit the Civil Military Operations Center office in Mosul late Wednesday, damaging some vehicles and leaving two people slightly wounded.

Two Iraqi policemen were found dead, their throats slit, on the sidewalk in front of Mosul's US-supported television station around midnight, according to an employee of the station, Samir Abed Rabbo, 50.

News agencies around the world published reports that 8 U.S. soldiers were killed in a single ambush in Iraq on Thursday.

Then late Thursday, Reuters News reports that another 3 U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded in yet another guerilla ambush... this one near Tikrit late at night.

It has been a VERY BLOODY DAY for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. But it's all been worth it hasn't it. The U.S. invaded Iraq... "just in time", destroying mountains of dangerous chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons that were trained on the United States and capable of being launched in only 45 minutes. As our fearless leader, George W. said... we couldn't wait for the smoking gun of a nuclear mushroom cloud rising over New York... so we invaded Iraq in self defense.

YEAH RIGHT. NOT A SINGLE WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION HAS BEEN FOUND! WE WERE LIED TO! WE ARE STILL BEING LIED TO! IT'S ALL ABOUT THE DAMN OIL!

FRIDAY VIGIL, 9/19/03

END THE OCCUPATION

BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW

Studio City, intersection of Ventura & Laurel Canyon,

6 to 7:30 PM

So....

You would rather have the status quo ante bellum? You would prefer the Ba'ath party still firmly ensconced in power, imprisoning, torturing and executing at will? Or are the mass graves merely more disinformation? Are the torture chambers merely more lies?

Take your vigil out to sea and sink yourself you apologist for totalitarians.

not calling yourself

nonanarchist anymore?

how about eric?

What's with you people? Why do you have such a hard time believing there is more than one person who doens't buy your crap?

Trust me...there are more of us than there are of you.

I can see your point, though...Simon does have a valid point.

The Left ovbiously doesn't give a damn about the Iraqi people. They would rather sacrifice any number of little brown people as long as Bush doesn't get his way.

Now, non, answer me this...what happens if all the coalition troops pull out right now?

Why don't we ask the base commander to explain daveman's use of the internet in not for military PR.

Why don't you just go forward with all these big plans of yours and let's see what happens. Capache?

plans.....

the base commander at Shaw would most likely resent the issue if any of the ten of us that post ( most of which, as you know, are only you and me) here on this insignificant news wire/comment board decided to make an issue about it. Provide full logs ( as they have) to show amount of ip traffic to this site. Show hours. Request

justification for expenditure. Be all that you can be, in the people's army.

Plan 2

Bring to the attention of the rep's, and senators the nature of this military involvement as a full time 'recreation' for lard asss airmen. Any other questions, Skippy?

My assigned duties are performed every day.

I don't get paid for when I'm on duty; I get paid 24/7.

The internet connection in my office is always on.

The 'net server is always on.

Now, just exactly what am I wasting?

And what are you afraid of?

hello my real handle is DAVEMAN

OR ERIC

being daveman.

However, I have never posted as Eric, despite what the voices in your head may tell you.

Now answer my question:

What are you afraid of?

Tell, me, Fido, you lying doggie...do you lie about everything...

.....no, wait, how can he answer that question?

That's the first lie I've ever told here.

My assigned duties are performed every day.

[yes, we know; that's why you're here for hours at a time for days on end.]

I don't get paid for when I'm on duty; I get paid 24/7.

{ wet sounds of satisfied baby suckling with cooing noises] type, type '/.more doughnuts please, Skippy]

The 'net server is always on.

[aren't you glad for the air conditioning and coffee? Must be thunderstorms there now this time of year awful muggy, glad you're not on outside duty like alot of the real troops

working on, you know, the mission, the birds. USAF huh?]

Now, just exactly what am I wasting?

{ my taxes, you ass, get a real job on the outside, lying to people or promoting the bullshit you shovel at us with your defense contract weasel friends but on your own fat asssed time. And good luck to you. The Republicans I'm sure would love to have you wipe THEIR asses.

The usual conflict of interest exists blatantly by your passionate rational defending our taxes being diverted into your handler's pockets.

The military is not an incubator of independent thought as I believe that consensus of opinion from readers of this comment board would agree...]

And what are you afraid of?[nothing short of stupidity]

It's amazing how some people know so little about a subject and don't even know it... yet think they know it all. Laughable.

I've done my time in the desert, and will undoubtedly do more. In the 6 years I was in deployable units, I spent 14 months throughout the Middle East. I was in a C-130 crash in Kuwait. I've worked outside in 120 degree heat. I've worked 12 hours days, 6 days a week. I fixed broken equipment my predecesors thought was unrepairable. I developed procedures to make some very dangerous maintenance actions safer for my crew. I made my shop more efficient and kept a fleet of 45 prime power generators running with almost 100% reliability in adverse environmental conditions. I spent a year in South Korea, away from my family, busting my butt. War games every month. Chem gear. Worked 38 10-hour days in a row with no days off. Out on the runway at midnight, in January, fixing stuff and shovelling snow, with the wind coming straight out of Siberia.

Now I have a desk job, and while it's important, it bores the snot out of me. Would I rather be in the field turning wrenches? You bet. But for now, I'm stuck with it. Have to be on station for 2 years before I can get an assignment, and then it'll probably another tour in Korea.

But that's okay. That's part of the deal.

"The usual conflict of interest exists blatantly by your passionate rational defending our taxes being diverted into your handler's pockets."

Huh? Like I said, it's amazing how some people know so little about a subject and don't even know it... yet think they know it all.

"The military is not an incubator of independent thought..."

How would you know? Doesn't sound like you'd recognize it.

"...as I believe that consensus of opinion from readers of this comment board would agree."

And there you have it, the IndyMedia calling card...confusing opinion with fact.

I didn't give my resume to impress anyone. You yo-yos won't believe it, anyway. Can you possibly guess how little I care about that? Nevertheless, it's the truth.

But you can't recognize that when you see it, either.

>>You would prefer the Ba'ath party still firmly ensconced in power, imprisoning, torturing and executing at will? >>:

1.the baath party is still in power,since those same bushiite terrorists that placed them in power in the first place are now rerecruiting muqabarat torturers as reported by the mainstream press

2.saddam is aliove and kicking

You need to take off the "hate Bush" colored glasses and try looking at reality.

Hey...any truth to the rumor that Bush is responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs?

yes everything's unraveling because we hate Bush.

power to the people.

...the people spoke in 2000.

They will speak again in 2004.

But since you didn't like what they had to say, you will predictably whine about "stolen elections" and "selections".

Saddam hussein was democratically elected

so was

adolf hitler

so was

manuel noriega

WHAT THOSE ELECTIONS WERE RIGGED?

SAYS WHO?

WHO TOLD YOU TO THINK LIKE THAT?

whos in control?

whos waggin the dog...

how about you people apologize to the Iraqis first for propping up Saddam and supplying him with WMD in the first place?

To illustrate my point, if I shot you numerous times in your chest, then drove you in my car to the hospital where you could receive emergency treatment and survive, it would not mean that I am your saviour.

so to Americans claiming that they "liberated" Iraq. Please keep your Kool-Aid/Doritos/Double Stuffed Oreo bullshit to yourself.

You are an ignorant infant, X.

The Iraqi people are better off now then they were before their liberation. Why don't you ask them?

They have been liberated from thralldom to a fascist dictatorship.

ON TO TEHRAN

now that nonanarchist=daveman

all of a sudden

simple simon returns

mysteriously

FROM NOwhere

looks suspicious to me.....

always suspected

simple simon =daveman=nonanarchist

>In case you didn't notice, the people spoke in 2000.

They will speak again in 2004.

But since you didn't like what they had to say, you will predictably whine about "stolen elections" and "selections".

They already have started their excuses here. Just note the number of articles and comments published on how the voting devises can be "rigged".

Hey, gotta be ahead of the conspiracy theory curve if you want to get noticed.

Someone needs to get their story straight.

Diebold voting machines are used in 37 states. The entire state of Ohio is considering dumping its old system to buy Diebold. Georgia already did.

The Diebold files, supposedly secret voting machine files left on an unprotected web site for nearly six years, are unlocking the truth.

Official stories about voting machine security, acceptance testing and last-minute program changes are beginning to slide around like hot grease on a Georgia griddle.

What was the program patch known as rob-georgia.zip used for? What were they doing with that ftp site, anyway? Hang in for the first part of this article, the finger-pointing and obfuscating part, because it concludes with a straightforward explanation of what went on in Georgia that has never been made public before.

**************

DO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE TELL THE TRUTH?

"We protect the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We protect the Hope Diamond," [Diebold CEO Wally] O'Dell told The Plain Dealer in May 2002. "Now, we protect the most sacred treasure we have, our secret ballot."

If they can't tell us the truth about simple things like "does it connect to modems," can we really be confident that they are protecting our vote?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00078.htm

If the Chicago Machine had these, they could have saved themselves a lot of steps.

Didn't you save a ray manta once?