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BAGHDAD, Iraq
Dec. 28
— A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and two children in Baghdad on
Sunday, a day after a coordinated guerrilla onslaught in the southern
city of Karbala left 13 dead and almost 200 injured.
The Baghdad blast also injured five U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi
interpreter as well as eight members of the Iraqi civil defense corps,
said U.S. Army Sgt. Patrick Compton of the Army's 1st Armored Division.
All the U.S. casualties were from the Army's 2nd
Armored Cavalry Regiment, which were on patrol in the eastern Baghdad
neighborhood of Karrada.
"It was a bad one," Compton said. "It's a real densely populated area of town."
On Saturday, rebels in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala
launched the biggest rebel attack since the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam
Hussein, with suicide bombers and assailants with mortars and grenade
launchers hammering coalition military bases and the governor's office.
Six coalition soldiers, six Iraqi police officers and a civilian
died. At least 172 people, many of them civilians caught in the chaos,
were injured. Four of the soldiers were Bulgarian and two were Thai
believed to be Thailand's first overseas combat deaths since the
Vietnam War.
The attack appeared designed to undermine the resolve of U.S. allies soldiering in Iraq.
In Thailand on Sunday, government and military officials debated the
wisdom of the Thai deployment, with one senator calling for a
withdrawal of the 422 Thai troops sent provide medical aid and
rebuilding help. Thailand's prime minister vowed Sunday to keep his
nation's troops in Iraq.
The Thai and Bulgarian troops form part of a multinational force of
9,500 soldiers led by Poland that controls south-central Iraq. Its
commander, Gen. Andrzej Tyszkiewicz called the ambush the most serious
attack suffered by coalition forces in that region.
"It was a coordinated, massive attack planned on a big scale and intended to do much harm," Tyszkiewicz said.
Insurgents might also have targeted Karbala, south of Baghdad, on
the assumption that military targets there would be more vulnerable to
attack. Most rebel assaults occur in Sunni Muslim areas north and west
of Baghdad, where combat-tested American troops have more experience
fending off suicide bombers and other ambushers.
One of four suicide bombers in Karbala gained entry to a Bulgarian
camp, cutting through roadblocks in a car and destroying a building
where the unit headquarters was located, Bulgarian Deputy Defense
Minister Ilko Dimitrov said in Sofia.
Four Bulgarian soldiers were killed and 27 others were wounded, Dimitrov said.
"We expected these attacks because Karbala was suspiciously peaceful," said Nikola Kolev, the Bulgarian army chief of staff.
Bulgaria, a staunch supporter of the U.S. military campaign in Iraq, has a 485-member light infantry battalion in Iraq.
The two Thai soldiers killed were on guard duty when the vehicle
rammed into their camp's wall, a Thai spokesman said in Bangkok.
Six Iraqi police officers and an Iraqi woman living next to one of
the military bases were killed in Karbala, said Ali al-Arzawi, deputy
director of the General Hospital. Some 135 Iraqi civilians and police
officers also were wounded, many lightly, he said.
In Baghdad, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said a total of 37 coalition soldiers, including five Americans, were injured.
After the attacks, U.S. troops sealed off the debris-strewn area
around the governor's office. Three destroyed cars lay in the street.
At the hospital, crying people crowded the corridors, searching for
missing family members.
"I was in the front office when I heard a loud explosion," Wahab
Abdel Hussain, a 45-year-old desk officer at the governor's office,
said from his hospital bed as blood ran down his face. "Shattered glass
hit me in the face and then I passed out. I woke up in the hospital."
Mohamed Jassim, 50, said he was about to enter the governor's office
to try to settle a land dispute when a car bomb exploded, injuring his
hand.
"I was knocked out on the floor by the explosion," he said. He blamed supporters of Saddam.
Despite the attacks in Karbala, where Saddam conducted a bloody
crackdown on Shiite opponents in 1991, U.S. military officials said the
number of rebel assaults has dropped from about 50 a day in
mid-September to an average of about 15 a day, spiking to 18 on
Christmas Day.
photo credit and caption:
U.S soldiers secure the area in Karbala,
about 110 kms (62 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, where rebels unleashed
a massive and coordinated assault on a pair of military bases and the
governor's office Saturday Dec. 27, 2003 killing six Iraqi police
officers, four coalition soldiers. Some 135 Iraqi civilians and police
officers also were wounded, according to a hospital official. (AP
Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.
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