By Steven R. Hurst
The Associated Press, 20 September 2005.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military said Tuesday that four U.S. soldiers died in two roadside bombings near the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi and a fifth died in a blast north of Baghdad, pushing the toll of American forces killed in Iraq past 1,900.
Also Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed four other Americans - a diplomatic security agent and three private security agents - in the northern city of Mosul, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Four of the soldiers were killed in two separate bomb attacks Monday during combat operations in Ramadi, a volatile city 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. The victims were U.S. Army soldiers attached to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.
The fifth soldier, from the 18th Military Police Brigade, was killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb 75 miles north of the capital, the military said.
As of Tuesday, 1,904 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,483 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
Ramadi, a city of about 350,000, has been the scene of intense but sporadic fighting since the insurgency gained strength and began its offensive against U.S. forces during the summer of 2003.
The Euphrates River city is the capital of Anbar Province, a huge region that stretches east from Baghdad to the Saudi, Jordanian and Syrian borders. Many cities, towns and villages along the river are insurgent strongholds, where Saddam Hussein loyalists have teamed with infiltrating foreign fighters of al-Qaida in Iraq to battle the Americans and U.S.-trained Iraqi army and police.
There have been reports of fighting in the region since Thursday, when al-Qaida in Iraq said in an Internet posting that its forces and the Americans had engaged in heavy combat.
In recent weeks, rebel bombs have been responsible for 70 percent to 80 percent of American soldiers killed or wounded, according to U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Steven Boylan.
Since the start of the war, about 32 percent of American military deaths have been from improvised explosives, suicide bombs or other such blasts - compared with about 48 percent in firefights and other combat. About 19 percent died in accidents.
The Sunni-dominated insurgency has conducted a rampage of violent attacks since a suicide bomber blew himself up amid laborers gathered for day work in Baghdad, killing 112 people, mostly Shiites. Thirteen more bombings in the next 10 hours produced a staggering toll of 167 dead, the bloodiest day in the capital since the invasion.
Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility, and its leader, Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared war on the country's Shiite majority.
A spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, meanwhile, described as "very unfortunate" an incident in the southern city of Basra in which British armored vehicles broke down the wall of a jail to try to free two British soldiers who were later found in the custody of local militiamen elsewhere in the city.
"My understanding is, first, it happened very quickly. Second, there is lack of discipline in the whole area regarding this matter," said Haydar al-Abadi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. "It is (a) very unfortunate development that the British forces should try to release their soldiers the way it happened."
British authorities said their soldiers were being held illegally and that their captors had refused an order from the Iraqi Interior Minister for their release. The commander of the operation to free them sought to minimize the extent of destruction at the jail.
"Minor damage was caused to the prison compound wall and to the house in which our two soldiers were held," said Brig. John Lorimer, commander of the 12th Mechanized Brigade.
Photos from the jail Tuesday showed a concrete wall broken through, several cars crushed - apparently by armored vehicles - and prefabricated structures demolished.
Mohammed al-Waili, the governor of Basra province, condemned the British for raiding the prison, an act he called "barbaric, savage and irresponsible."
British Defense Minister John Reid defended the action as "absolutely right."
He said laws under which the Iraqi government was given sovereignty in 2004 require that coalition forces detained by Iraqi authorities must be handed over to the U.S.-led multinational force.
"I understand also that the minister of the Interior, at the highest level, instructed that they should be (handed over), that the local judicial authorities said the same," Reid told the British Broadcasting Corp.
"And that is why in the course of the day, while we were negotiating, in view of that fact that they weren't handed over, we got increasingly worried and the commander on the spot, with hindsight, was absolutely right to do what he did, because we discovered they weren't in the police station, they were somewhere else, but are now safe," Reid said.
His comments contradicted earlier Defense Ministry statements in which British authorities said the two soldiers were freed through negotiations.
Aquil Jabbar, an Iraqi TV cameraman who lives across the street from the jail, said about 150 Iraqi prisoners fled as British commandos stormed inside to rescue their comrades. Iraqi and British officials said that was not true.
The Shiite-dominated south of Iraq, where 8,500 British troops are based, has been far quieter than Sunni regions to the north, but Britons have come under increasingly frequent attacks recently. The British military has reported 96 deaths since the war began.
The latest violence in Basra, 340 miles south of the capital, began early Monday when authorities reported arresting the two Britons, described as special forces commandos dressed in civilian clothing, for allegedly shooting two Iraqi policemen, one of whom reportedly died.
Al-Abadi, however, said the men were arrested because they acted suspiciously.
"The had been there watching for something, collecting information. For two guys to collect information in civilian clothes, in the current tense security situation in Iraq and in Basra, I believe that the reaction of the Iraqi security forces is totally understood," the spokesman said.
British armor then encircled the jail where the two were held.
TV cameramen from Arab satellite broadcasters in the Persian Gulf were allowed to photograph the two men, who appeared to be Westerners and were sitting on the floor in the jail, their hands tied behind their backs.
One of the men had a bandage on his head, the other had blood on his clothes.
Outside the jail, a melee broke out in the streets as demonstrators attacked the British armor with stones and Molotov cocktails. During the chaos, one British soldier could be seen scrambling for his life from a burning Warrior armored fighting vehicle and the rock-throwing mob.
Press Association reported that three British soldiers were hurt in the violence, but said none of the injuries was life-threatening. Iraqi authorities said three demonstrators were killed and 15 others wounded.
Lorimer said Monday's violence was blown out of proportion, noting the scene made for "graphic television viewing" but that "this was a small, unrepresentative crowd of about 200 to 300 in a city of 1.5 million."
Tensions have been mounting in Basra for some weeks.
On Friday, a local commander of al-Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was arrested, prompting a demonstration by militiamen demanding his release.
On Sunday, an Iraqi journalist working for The New York Times was killed after men claiming to be police officers took him from his home, the newspaper said. Fakher Haider, 38, was found dead in a deserted area on the city's outskirts Monday, hands bound with at least one gunshot to the head, the Times reported.
Last month, freelance journalist Steven Vincent was killed after he wrote a column in the Times accusing Basra police of being infiltrated by Shiite militiamen. He was abducted and his body was discovered that night by a highway south of Basra. A senior British official said Islamic militants - and not Iraqi police - probably killed Vincent.
Citation: Steven R. Hurst. "Military: Troop Deaths Hit 1,904 in Iraq," The Associated Press, 20 September 2005.
Original URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5290528,00.html