[Vision2020] How is the World Safer? (Iraq)

[Tom Hansen]

Scores die as violence spreads 

U.S. helicopters fire on crowd in Baghdad

 

 

An Iraqi policeman inspects damage done to the car of Lt. Col. Alaa al-Din
Arif, who was killed after a car bomb exploded nearby, in Baghdad on Sunday.
A car bomb detonated early Sunday in a western Baghdad neighborhood, killing
two police officers on patrol, the Interior Ministry said. (Associated Press
)

 

Evan Osnos

Chicago Tribune

September 13, 2004

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Rebels on Sunday launched their most intense assault on
central Baghdad in months, raining mortars on the U.S.-controlled Green Zone
and exploding a car bomb to destroy an American armored vehicle. The day of
violence left at least 59 Iraqis dead and injured scores more across the
country.

 

In one incident, U.S. helicopters fired into a crowd gathered around the
disabled Bradley fighting vehicle.

 

The airstrike, which the military said is under investigation, was captured
on film when a correspondent for an Arabic-language television network was
mortally wounded by shrapnel from the strike in the midst of taping a
report. Reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi, 25, was talking into the camera, with
flames and bystanders in the background, when a sharp blast buckled him
forward. The camera swung away with blood on the lens, as al-Tumeizi yelled,
"I am dying. I am dying."

 

The images and the death toll provided a bleak illustration of the
unremitting bloodshed left by Iraq's 17-month-old insurgency, proving that,
more than two months after an interim Iraqi government took power with a
pledge to bring security, rebels still strike the heart of the capital at
will. By day's end, 25 Iraqis had died in Baghdad, while other clashes left
10 dead in the southern city of Hillah and 14 in the western city of Ramadi,
according to the Iraqi Health Ministry.

 

No U.S. deaths were reported Sunday, but six soldiers were wounded in the
car bomb attack that destroyed the Bradley fighting vehicle, military
officials said.

 

Three Polish soldiers were killed and at least three more were injured in
fighting while returning from a demining mission near Hillah, Polish forces
said. The deaths raised to 13 the number of Polish soldiers killed in Iraq.

 

Even as they fought in much of the country, U.S.-led troops said they had
peacefully retaken the embattled city of Tal Afar early Sunday, three days
after fierce clashes with insurgents closed off the city and sent thousands
of residents fleeing.

 

Roughly 2,000 U.S. soldiers in high-tech Stryker armored vehicles headed
into the city at 3:15 a.m. to root out militias and secure the city,
spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said. U.S. troops stationed just outside
Tal Afar had been involved in escalating battles and expected fierce
resistance. But the troops secured the city without a struggle, Hastings
said.

 

U.S. commanders said they did not immediately know the whereabouts of an
estimated 200 guerrillas who had been fighting American troops with
small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs and mortars.
During the past two weeks, fighting in Tal Afar, a remote northwest city
near the Syrian border, killed an estimated 67 insurgents, officials said.

 

Outside Baghdad on Sunday, a suicide bomber attempted to ram his car into
the gate of Abu Ghraib prison, but U.S. guards fired back and caused the car
to explode before it breached the gate, the military said.

 

The most serious violence of the day was on Baghdad's Haifa Street, a main
thoroughfare that is home largely to Palestinian and Syrian expatriates and
has been a frequent site of clashes with U.S. troops. The slain journalist,
Mazen al-Tumeizi, was one of those Palestinian immigrants who had settled in
Baghdad with his family seven years ago.

 

A 2002 graduate of Baghdad University, al-Tumeizi had found work last summer
as a producer for Al-Arabiya television.

 

After the airstrike, al-Tumeizi was rushed to a hospital with injuries to
his back, leg and arm and died 90 minutes later, said Wehad Yacoub, Baghdad
bureau manager for Al-Arabiya.

 

On Sunday, al-Tumeizi was asleep at 4 a.m. when the rebels' mortar onslaught
began, said his roommate, Rajih Khalil al-Talahma, who was injured in the
U.S. airstrike.

 

U.S. troops moved into the area, hiding behind trees and walls as they
fought with guerrillas in the street and among apartment complexes,
al-Talahma said. At 6:50 a.m., a U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle on its way to
help a group of soldiers was hit by a car bomb, injuring two soldiers, the
military said, and four others were wounded by grenades and gunfire during
the evacuation.

 

With the soldiers gone, a crowd swarmed the burning vehicle and celebrated,
some hoisting a flag with "Unity and Holy War," the name of the militant
group loyal to Jordanian rebel leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has claimed
responsibility for months of bombings, kidnappings and other attacks in
Iraq.

 

Al-Tumeizi had raced to the scene from his apartment with a Reuters
cameraman and the pair teamed up to tape a report. He was set to leave when
he realized he had forgotten to film a sign-off that included his name and
station identification.

 

"He said, 'Let's go back,' " al-Tumeizi's roommate, his head bandaged and
his leg broken, recalled at al Karch Hospital. "The cameraman didn't even
set up a tripod because it was (to be) so short. Then we heard the
helicopters."

 

 

We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are
dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all
exist very nicely in the same box. 

 

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