Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: The Associated Press
Byline: n/a
Date: 17 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Iraq_A roadside bomb killed five Iraqi soldiers in a city west of
Baghdad Tuesday, as U.S. troops helped Iraqi security forces contain
sectarian fighting in Balad that has killed close to 100 people.
The bomb struck the soldiers' convoy as they were passing through Karmah, 80
kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad at 7:00 a.m. (0400 GMT), police Lt.
Ahmed Ali said.
In the northern city of Mosul, gunmen killed a member of the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan, one of two main Kurdish political parties, police Brig. Saed
Ahmed said. Gunmen approached by car and fired at Fatah Hurki at 8:30 a.m
(0530) as he stood in front of his home in the al-Shurta section of Mosul,
360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Ahmed said.
Also in the heavily Kurdish north, two suicide car bombers blew themselves
up at about 5:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) near the police academy in Kirkuk, police
Brig. Sarhat Qadir said. There were no reports of other casualties in the
attack.
A Kurdish girls' high school in Kirkuk was hit by a suicide bomber on
Sunday, part of a string of attacks that killed at least 10 people in the
ethnically mixed city.
In Baghdad, two people, including a policeman, were killed and four wounded
in a mortar attack on the downtown Ilwiyah neighborhood, police Lt. Bilal
Ali Majid said.
The blindfolded and bound bodies of two unidentified men were found dumped
in west Baghdad early Tuesday, Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq said. Abdul-Razaq
said the men had been shot in the head and their bodies showed signs of
torture _ a calling card of roving sectarian death squads blamed for nightly
killings and abductions.
Four people traveling in a car were injured by a roadside bomb that targeted
but missed a police patrol in east Baghdad's Zayouna neighborhood, Capt.
Mohammed Adul-Ghani said.
The fighting in Balad, a town near a major U.S. air base an hour's drive
north of the capital, began Friday with the slaying of 17 Shiite Muslim
workers. Revenge-seeking Shiite death squads then killed 74 Sunnis, causing
people to flee across the Tigris River to the nearby Sunni-dominated city of
Duluiyah.
U.S. forces have appeared to keep a low-profile in the fighting, in which
local police units have reportedly joined with Shiite militiamen to attack
Sunnis.
American spokesmen have said only that U.S. forces were units are
"partnering with" Iraqi police and army units operating around Balad and
providing "quick reaction assets" to the Iraqi police and army.
The situation in the area was unclear on Tuesday and witnesses said Balad
was largely blocked off by security forces.
The two runways at the air base on the outskirts of Balad are among the
world's busiest, launching 27,500 aircraft a month, hundreds of them
bomb-laden jets that support U.S. troops moving against insurgents. The base
is also the supply hub for all U.S. military operations in Iraq.
There were no new reports Tuesday of U.S. casualties in Iraq. Seven American
troops died in fighting Sunday, raising the U.S. toll to 58 killed in the
first two weeks of October, a pace that if continued would make the month
the worst for coalition forces since January 2005.
Iraqi deaths also are running at a high rate. According to an Associated
Press count, 708 Iraqis have been reported killed in war-related violence
this month, or just over 44 a day, compared to a daily average of more than
27 since the AP began tracking deaths in April 2005.
Byline: n/a
Date: 17 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Iraq_A roadside bomb killed five Iraqi soldiers in a city west of
Baghdad Tuesday, as U.S. troops helped Iraqi security forces contain
sectarian fighting in Balad that has killed close to 100 people.
The bomb struck the soldiers' convoy as they were passing through Karmah, 80
kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad at 7:00 a.m. (0400 GMT), police Lt.
Ahmed Ali said.
In the northern city of Mosul, gunmen killed a member of the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan, one of two main Kurdish political parties, police Brig. Saed
Ahmed said. Gunmen approached by car and fired at Fatah Hurki at 8:30 a.m
(0530) as he stood in front of his home in the al-Shurta section of Mosul,
360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Ahmed said.
Also in the heavily Kurdish north, two suicide car bombers blew themselves
up at about 5:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) near the police academy in Kirkuk, police
Brig. Sarhat Qadir said. There were no reports of other casualties in the
attack.
A Kurdish girls' high school in Kirkuk was hit by a suicide bomber on
Sunday, part of a string of attacks that killed at least 10 people in the
ethnically mixed city.
In Baghdad, two people, including a policeman, were killed and four wounded
in a mortar attack on the downtown Ilwiyah neighborhood, police Lt. Bilal
Ali Majid said.
The blindfolded and bound bodies of two unidentified men were found dumped
in west Baghdad early Tuesday, Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq said. Abdul-Razaq
said the men had been shot in the head and their bodies showed signs of
torture _ a calling card of roving sectarian death squads blamed for nightly
killings and abductions.
Four people traveling in a car were injured by a roadside bomb that targeted
but missed a police patrol in east Baghdad's Zayouna neighborhood, Capt.
Mohammed Adul-Ghani said.
The fighting in Balad, a town near a major U.S. air base an hour's drive
north of the capital, began Friday with the slaying of 17 Shiite Muslim
workers. Revenge-seeking Shiite death squads then killed 74 Sunnis, causing
people to flee across the Tigris River to the nearby Sunni-dominated city of
Duluiyah.
U.S. forces have appeared to keep a low-profile in the fighting, in which
local police units have reportedly joined with Shiite militiamen to attack
Sunnis.
American spokesmen have said only that U.S. forces were units are
"partnering with" Iraqi police and army units operating around Balad and
providing "quick reaction assets" to the Iraqi police and army.
The situation in the area was unclear on Tuesday and witnesses said Balad
was largely blocked off by security forces.
The two runways at the air base on the outskirts of Balad are among the
world's busiest, launching 27,500 aircraft a month, hundreds of them
bomb-laden jets that support U.S. troops moving against insurgents. The base
is also the supply hub for all U.S. military operations in Iraq.
There were no new reports Tuesday of U.S. casualties in Iraq. Seven American
troops died in fighting Sunday, raising the U.S. toll to 58 killed in the
first two weeks of October, a pace that if continued would make the month
the worst for coalition forces since January 2005.
Iraqi deaths also are running at a high rate. According to an Associated
Press count, 708 Iraqis have been reported killed in war-related violence
this month, or just over 44 a day, compared to a daily average of more than
27 since the AP began tracking deaths in April 2005.