Paratroopers killed as guerrilla attacks continue
Insurgents killed two US paratroopers and wounded another west of Baghdad today as the US military cracked down on residents of Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit after guerrillas apparently shot down a Black Hawk helicopter there.
The two 82nd Airborne Division soldiers died today when a homemade bomb exploded beside their vehicle about 8.30am (local time) in Fallujah, a centre of Sunni Muslim resistance 40 miles west of Baghdad, the military said.
Their deaths brought to 34 the number of American soldiers who have died in Iraq this month as resistance escalated during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
In Geneva, meanwhile, the international Red Cross said today it was temporarily closing its offices in Baghdad and Basra because of security.
The Red Cross had planned to cut back on foreign staff after the October 27 truck-bombing at its Baghdad office but had planned to keep the offices open with reduced staff.
“We decided that in view of an extremely dangerous and volatile situation that we would have to temporarily close our offices in Baghdad and Basra,” said Florian Westphal, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Red Cross maintains a staff of about 30 foreign staffers and 600 Iraqis.
In Mosul, 250 miles north of Baghdad, guerrillas fired six mortar rounds at a police station in the city, Iraqi police said today. Several shells missed their target and fell on nearby houses, slightly injuring a resident.
The city, which was once considered to be relatively free of guerrilla activity, has seen dozens of attacks on US forces in recent weeks, indicating that the rebellion has spread northward from its original stronghold in the so-called Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad.
In Friday’s helicopter crash, all six US soldiers aboard were killed, capping the bloodiest seven days in Iraq for Americans since the fall of Baghdad.
Lt. Col. Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, also said US forces had reimposed the 11pm to 4am curfew on Tikrit, which had been lifted at the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan last month.
“This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them,” Russell said after his troops blasted two abandoned houses and a warehouse with machine gun and heavy weapons fire.
US troops late Friday also fired mortars and jets dropped at least three 500-pound bombs around the crash site, rattling windows over a wide area. Other US jets streaked over Tikrit after sundown.
At least three mortars were also fired onto the US compound but caused no damage.
The helicopter went down on an island in the Tigris River and burst into flames – the third crash caused by hostile fire in two weeks and the second causing fatalities. Maj. Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division, said the cause had not been determined, but several other officers believed it was shot down.
The dead included the Black Hawk’s four-member crew and two soldiers from Department of the Army headquarters, according to a Pentagon spokesman.
US officers have long been concerned about the safety of aviation because of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of shoulder-fired missiles still missing in Iraq after the collapse of Saddam’s regime in April.
On October 25, insurgents shot down a Black Hawk over Tikrit, injuring one crewman. On Sunday, insurgent gunners brought down a Chinook transport helicopter west of Baghdad, killing 16 Americans in the bloodiest single strike against US forces since the war began March 20.
An Apache attack helicopter was shot down in June in the western desert but the two crewmembers escaped injury.
The week’s death toll was by far the largest for any seven-day period since President Bush declared an end to hostilities on May 1 – mainly due to the Chinook crash on November 2 that killed 16. In all of October, for instance, there were 42 deaths. In all of September, there were 31.
