Maybe only one Marine KIA in that incident

April 02, 2004

Soldier, Marine die in Iraq

By Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press

FALLUJAH, Iraq —The U.S. military announced the combat deaths of a soldier and a Marine. In the capital, a roadside bomb killed a soldier and wounded another early Friday in the city’s Mansour district. A Marine also died as a result of hostile action west of the capital a day earlier, the military said. The Marine was killed in Anbar province, of which Fallujah is the most populous city.
In northern Iraq, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at the entrance to a town hall near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Friday, killing himself and two other people, police said. They said some American soldiers were inside the town hall at the time of the explosion, but were unhurt.

At weekly prayers on Friday, a cleric condemned the mutilation of four slain American contractors in this conservative Muslim city, but did not criticize the killings.

In Fallujah, Sheik Fawzi Nameq addressed 600 worshippers gathered at the Hmood al-Mahmood Mosque, which is opposite the mayor’s office and a few blocks from the scene of the deadly ambush Wednesday.

“Islam does not condone the mutilation of the bodies of the dead,” the cleric said.

“Why do you want to bring destruction to our city? Why do you want to bring humiliation to the faithful? My brothers, wisdom is required here,” said Nameq, who refrained from making a judgment on the killings. Clerics in Fallujah strongly oppose the U.S.-led occupation and often use sermons to criticize American authority.

The charred remains of the four Americans were dragged through the streets for hours after insurgents ambushed their vehicles at the heart of Fallujah. Two of the corpses were hung from a bridge as people beat them with shoes and a pole. Iraqi police eventually collected their remains at the request of American troops.

Senior Fallujah cleric Sheik Khalid Ahmed had said that Muslim preachers in mosques across the city would tell their followers in Friday sermons that the mutilation of the bodies was wrong. He did not say whether they would condemn the killings.

“Prophet Muhammad prohibited even the mutilation of a dead, mad dog and he considered such a thing as religiously forbidden. What happened in Fallujah is a distortion of Islamic principles and it is forbidden in Islam,” he said.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of U.S. military operations in Iraq, pledged to hunt down those who carried out the killings, but said clashes could be avoided if Fallujah city officials arrest those responsible for the murders.

“If they were to deliver these people to the criminal justice system, we will come back in and start the rebuilding of Fallujah. That is their choice,” he said.

There was no sign of a U.S. military buildup around Fallujah on Friday.

A Fallujah city council member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the council issued a statement Thursday “condemning the mutilation of the bodies because it contradicts the teachings of Islam,” but he did not say whether a decision was made to take action against those responsible for the killings.

Police on Friday manned regular roadside checkpoints and there was no sign of U.S. troops in or around the city, where a mood of defiance and resolve remained despite the possibility of U.S. military retaliation.

However, those living on the city’s outskirts reported some families had left their homes for the safety of relatives’ dwellings deep inside the city.

Traffic in the city was heavy, with traffic wardens joined at major intersections by members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a security force set up by the U.S. military to help in the fight against the insurgency. Many shops were open.

“Islam bans what was done to the bodies, but the Americans are as brutal as the youths who burned and mutilated the bodies,” said Mahdi Ahmed Saleh, a 61-year-old retired primary school principal who now runs a grocery store.

“Americans have done so much to us over the past year and humiliated us so often. As Muslims with strong faith, we will endure whatever they want to do to us next,” said the silver-bearded Saleh as he sold ice-cream to small children.

Mohammed Mikhlef, a 45-year-old contractor, said at his home in the al-Askari neighborhood, scene of a fierce battle last week between insurgents and Marines: “We just do not know what the Americans will do now. But, by God, they are capable of so much cruelty.”

U.S. commanders defended their decision not to send forces into Fallujah on Wednesday to retrieve the bodies.

Kimmitt said U.S. forces didn’t respond for fear of ambushes and the possibility that insurgents would use civilians as human shields. “A pre-emptive attack into the city could have taken a bad situation and made it even worse,” he said.

“We are not going to do a pell-mell rush into the city. It will be deliberate, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming,” he said. “We will re-establish control of that city. ... It will be at the time and place of our choosing.”

Fallujah has been the scene of some of the worst anti-U.S. violence since the beginning of the U.S.-led occupation nearly a year ago. The insurgents appear to enjoy the support — or at least acquiescence — of a significant part of the population.

Late Thursday, gunmen fired on two police cars in the city of Baqouba, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing three officers and wounding two, according to Loua’ie Adel, an official at the city’s general hospital.

Ten U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Violence

The number of American Service Members Killed Reaches at Least 610
By KHALID MOHAMMED, AP

NAJAF, Iraq (April 4) - Supporters of an anti-American cleric rioted in four Iraqi cities Sunday, killing eight U.S. troops and one Salvadoran soldier in the worst unrest since the spasm of looting and arson immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The U.S. military on Sunday reported two Marines were killed in a separate ''enemy action'' in Anbar province, raising the toll of American service members killed in Iraq to at least 610.

The rioters were supporters of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. They were angry over Saturday's arrest on murder charges of one of al-Sadr's aides, Mustafa al-Yacoubi, and the closure of a pro-al-Sadr newspaper.

Near the holy city of Najaf, a gunbattle at a Spanish garrison killed at least 22 people, including two coalition soldiers - an American and a Salvadoran.

Fighting in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City killed seven U.S. soldiers and wounded at least 24, the U.S. military said in a written statement.

A resident said two Humvees were seen burning in the neighborhood, and that some American soldiers had taken refuge in a building. The report could not be independently confirmed, and it was unclear whether the soldiers involved were those who died.

A column of American tanks was seen moving through the center of Baghdad Sunday evening, possibly headed toward the fighting.

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The military said the fighting erupted after members of a militia loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took control of police stations and government buildings in the neighborhood.

Protesters clashed with Italian and British forces in other cities in a broad, violent challenge to the U.S.-led coalition, raising questions about its ability to stabilize Iraq ahead of a scheduled June 30 handover of power to Iraqis.

With less than three months left before then, the U.S. occupation administrator appointed an Iraqi defense minister and chief of national intelligence.

''These organizations will give Iraqis the means to defend their country against terrorists and insurgents,'' L. Paul Bremer said at a press conference.

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About three miles outside the holy city of Najaf, supporters of al-Sadr opened fire on the Spanish garrison during a street protest that drew about 5,000 people. The protesters were angry over the arrest of the cleric's aide, said the Spanish Defense Ministry in Madrid.

The attackers opened fire at about noon, said Cmdr. Carlos Herradon, a spokesman for the Spanish headquarters in nearby Diwaniyah.

The Spanish and Salvadoran soldiers inside the garrison fired back, and assailants later regrouped in three clusters outside the base as the shooting continued for several hours.

Two soldiers - a Salvadoran and an American - died and nine other soldiers were wounded, the Spanish defense ministry said. No other details were available.

More than 200 people were wounded, said Falah Mohammed, director of the Najaf health department. El Salvador's defense minister said several Salvadoran soldiers were wounded.

The death toll of at least 20 included two Iraqi soldiers who were inside the Spanish base, witnesses said.

Spain has 1,300 troops stationed in Iraq, and the Central American contingent is of a similar size. The Salvadorans are under Spanish command as part of an international brigade that includes troops from Central America.

Multiple train bombings in Madrid last month that killed 191 people have been blamed on al-Qaida-linked terrorists, who said they were punishing Spain for its alliance with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Spain's new government, elected just days after the March 11 train bombings, has promised to make good on its pre-election promise to withdraw all Spanish troops from Iraq unless command for peacekeeping is turned over to the United Nations.

In El Salvador, the defense minister said the attack will not alter his country's role in reconstruction efforts.

''It reinforces even more our decision to continue helping a country that is suffering,'' Juan Antonio Martinez said Sunday.

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The protesters were upset over the detention of al-Yacoubi, a senior aide to the 30-year-old al-Sadr, who opposes the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Al-Sadr is at odds with most Shiites, who hope to gain substantial power in the new Iraqi government.

Shiites comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people but were brutally repressed by the regime of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim.

At coalition headquarters in Baghdad, a senior official said on condition of anonymity that al-Yacoubi was detained Saturday on charges of murdering Abdel-Majid al-Khoei, a senior Shiite cleric who returned to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion. A total of 25 arrest warrants were issued, and 13 suspects have been arrested, the official said.

Spanish-led forces said they did not participate in the arrest.

In central Baghdad's Firdaus Square, police fired warning shots during a protest by hundreds of al-Sadr supporters against al-Yacoubi's arrest. At least two protesters were injured, witnesses said.

In Kufa, near Najaf, al-Sadr supporters took over a police station and seized guns inside. No police were in sight.

In the southern city of Nasiriyah, Italian troops traded fire with militiamen demonstrating against al-Yacoubi's detention, said Lt. Col. Pierluigi Monteduro, chief of staff of Italian troops in the region. One Italian officer was wounded in the leg.

Also in the south, British troops clashed with protesters in Amarah, according to the Ministry of Defense in London. It was unclear whether there were casualties.

Al-Sadr's office in Baghdad issued a statement later Sunday calling off street protests and saying the cleric would stage a sit-in at a mosque in Kufa, where he has delivered fiery weekly sermons for months.

Al-Sadr supporters also were angered by the March 28 closure of his weekly newspaper by U.S. officials. The Americans alleged the newspaper was inciting violence against coalition troops.

The two U.S. Marines, both assigned to the 1st Marine Division, were killed by an ''enemy action'' in Anbar province Saturday, the military said. One died Saturday and the other Sunday, the statement said without providing details.

Anbar is an enormous stretch of land reaching to the Jordanian and Syrian borders west of Baghdad that includes Fallujah, a city where four American civilian contractors were slain Wednesday.

At a checkpoint in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, that was manned by Iraqi Civil Defense personnel, a bomb killed three security officers and wounded another, workers at Samarra General Hospital said.

In Kirkuk, also in the north, a car bomb exploded, killing three civilians and wounding two others, police said.

Bremer on Sunday announced the appointments of Ali Allawi, the interim trade minister, as the new defense minister and Mohammed al-Shehwani, a former Iraqi air force officer who fled Iraq in 1990, as head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service.

Late Sunday, U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and a team that will assist Iraqis in the political transition to an interim Iraqi government arrived in Baghdad, the United Nations said.