Insurgents Kill 3 U.S. Soldiers in Iraq

10/29/2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded four on Saturday, and American forces attacked two towns near the Syrian border, killing at least 10 militants, the military said. Witnesses said some of the victims were civilians.

In Baghdad, the campaign for Iraq’s Dec. 15 parliamentary election effectively began as several of the 18 coalitions started holding news conferences to unveil their tickets.

New information also emerged Saturday about a triple suicide vehicle attack that occurred last week near the Palestine Hotel complex in Baghdad where many foreign journalists work. The well-coordinated attack killed 17 Iraqis on Monday and wounded several reporters.

The U.S. military said that one of its soldiers guarding the complex probably saved lives at the hotel by killing the suicide bomber who managed to penetrate the complex before he could reach the entrance of the building and set off his explosives.


“He was trying to kill people,” the soldier, Spc. Darrell Green, was quoted as saying by the military. “It was good we stopped him because he would have killed more people and destroyed the building.”

In violence Saturday, a land mine killed a U.S. soldier and wounded four near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. Two other U.S. Army soldiers died in south Baghdad when their patrol struck a roadside bomb, the military said.

The deaths came a day after the U.S. command announced that five other American service members were killed in Iraq the day before. The eight deaths raised to 2,015 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press.

In western Iraq, U.S. warplanes used precision-guided bombs to attack “safe houses” used by insurgents in the town of Karabilha near the Syrian border on Friday, killing at least 10 militants, the military said.

It provided no information about casualties, but Associated Press Television News video from the scene showed the bodies of at least four people, including a woman. Residents using a bulldozer to clear the wreckage of several destroyed brick homes said the people who died in the attacks included civilians with no ties to insurgent groups.


U.S. ground forces, meanwhile, raided suspected insurgent safe houses in the nearby town of Husaybah, the military said. Gunbattles also broke out with insurgents, and U.S. warplanes attacked them with precision guided munitions, the U.S. command said.

It said one of the attacks struck a house where Abu Mahmud, a senior al-Qaida in Iraq militant, was meeting with other insurgents, but it was not known if casualties resulted.

Six Iraqis also were killed Saturday in insurgent attacks in other areas of Iraq.

Two police officers died when their patrol hit a roadside bomb in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, said police Brig. Sarhad Qader.

In the capital, a drive-by shooting in the Dora neighborhood killed a police officer.


Gunmen opened fire on an Iraqi army checkpoint, touching off fighting that killed 3 Iraqi soldiers and three militants in a town near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said. Seven Iraqi soldiers also were wounded.

The military said insurgents used small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in Monday’s well-coordinated strike on the hotel complex, where many foreign journalists live and work.

Video from a surveillance camera at the Palestine Hotel showed one of the vehicles used in the attack - a cement truck - was fired on by a U.S. soldier from inside the compound. Around the same time, the vehicle also was seen rocking back and forth before it exploded, possibly because it was stuck on barbed wire or had collided with a small concrete barrier in the road.

Green, a machine gunner, was guarding the complex from an observation post at the Sheraton Hotel when insurgents began their attack, the military said.

As the dust and debris cleared from the first car bombing at the complex wall, Green saw the cement truck enter and drive in about 50 feet, the military said.


“As he shot and killed the driver, preventing the vehicle from going any further, the truck detonated,” the statement said.

The truck and its driver were obliterated by the powerful blast, making it impossible to know whether the explosives had been set off by a timer or by the driver before he died.

In an interview with The Associated Press, U.S. Sgt. 1st Class David Abrams said that for security reasons he couldn’t say exactly where Green was in the complex during the attack. But he said Green had fired from an elevated position using an optic device that gave him a clear view of his machine-gun rounds hitting and killing the driver.

At the time, the Sheraton Hotel was being hit with small-arms fire and what soldiers believe to be rocket-propelled grenades, the military said.

Al Qaida in Iraq later claimed responsibility for the attack on a Web site, but that could not be independently confirmed.

In political developments, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, and the leader of a broad coalition, said that if its candidates are elected, they will “treat all Iraqi people equally and bring stability, security and a strong leadership” to the country.

Iraq’s December election for a new parliament follows the Oct. 15 ratification of the new constitution, which many Sunni Arabs opposed. Despite the minority’s failure to block the charter, the decision by a Sunni coalition to participate and the presence of prominent Sunnis on other tickets indicated that many members of the community, which forms the core of the insurgency, have not abandoned the political process.

On Friday, a Sunni Arab coalition submitted its list of candidates, joining other political factions in the race and signaling greater Sunni participation in a process Washington hopes will help speed the day when U.S. troops can go home.

The coalitions and an undetermined number of parties and independents met the Friday deadline of filing for the election, when voters select a 275-member parliament to serve for four years. It will be the first full-term parliament in Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed a month after the U.S.-led invasion.