Posted on 09/26/2003 11:46:46 PM PDT by July 4th
This is only on their ticker at the moment. Don't know if it's just a minor event or if there are casualties.
Missiles fired toward U.S. headquarters compound in central Baghdad
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Three rockets were fired early Saturday in the direction of the U.S.-controlled al-Rashid Hotel and Convention Center complex in central Baghdad, nearby residents said.
A U.S. soldier in the convention center, where the U.S. military maintains its press office and other facilities, said three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the al-Rashid, but he didn't think there were any casualties.
The soldier, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not say if the attackers hit the hotel.
Many U.S. military officials and American civilian support staff stay in the hotel.
The neighborhood was sealed off. Residents of a neighborhood just west of the complex said the rocket launcher was fired from the middle of a street in the Salhiya district and left behind as the attackers fled.
U.S. forces and security men in civilian clothing sealed off the neighborhood.
One resident who saw the launcher near his home said he heard the sound of three launches at about 6:30 a.m.
Rocket-propelled grenade attack kills U.S. soldier, wounds two in northern Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Three rocket-propelled grenades were fired toward U.S. military offices in central Baghdad on Saturday, raising tensions already high because of a fatal ambush on American soldiers and reports that U.S. soldiers killed four Iraqis at a checkpoint.
A U.S. soldier in the al-Rashid Hotel and Convention Center, where the military maintains its press office and other facilities, said the grenades were fired early Saturday. He would not say if the attackers hit the hotel, but added he didn't think there were any casualties.
The neighborhood was sealed off. Residents of a neighborhood just west of the complex said the rocket launcher was fired from the middle of a street in the Salhiya district and left behind as the attackers fled. A resident said the grenades were fired at about 6:30 a.m.
The attack came as residents in Fallujah, a hotspot west of Baghdad, reported that U.S. troops fired on two vehicles at a checkpoint Friday night, killing four Iraqis and wounding at least three others, including a child.
U.S. military officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the reported checkpoint shooting.
Residents reached by telephone in Fallujah said it occurred Friday night on the eastern edge of Fallujah, where opposition to the American presence runs deep.
Iraqi policeman Sinan Najam Fahd said U.S. troops fired at a car and a pickup truck but gave no reason why. Police and ambulances rushed the victims to Fallujah General Hospital. They included one girl who appeared to be about 10 years old and who suffered a leg wound.
Fahd spoke of three wounded and said the dead included two men and two women. The Al-Jazeera satellite news network and some local residents said five people were wounded.
Fallujah, located west of Baghdad in the so-called "Sunni Triangle," is one of the major flashpoints of tension between U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.
On Sept. 12, U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division killed eight Iraqi policemen and a Jordanian hospital guard near Fallujah. The police were chasing a car known to have been involved in highway banditry.
In April, soldiers from the division fired on protesters on two successive days, killing 18 and wounding 78. U.S. troops had withdrawn to a base outside the city in July and had been turning over security duties to local police. The U.S. military at the time said the troops were fired at first in the April incident, but Iraqi witnesses denied this.
U.S. forces are struggling to maintain order in Iraq five months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government.
The U.S. military said one soldier from the 173rd Airborne Brigade was killed and two were wounded in an ambush at Kirkuk, 145 miles northeast of Baghdad, when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at their vehicle at about 11 p.m. Thursday.
The death raised to 86 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major fighting in Iraq. The military also announced that a soldier from the 4th Infantry Division died and another was injured in a fire Thursday night in an abandoned building in the Tikrit area.
Mourners on Friday buried Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council who was assassinated, apparently by Saddam loyalists.
"Aquila, as we all knew her, in her modesty, in her courage, in her creative imagination, in her understanding of the human spirit, in her love of liberty and justice, and in passionate commitment to her family and to her people, represented the full and free potential of the true Iraq," Jeremy Greenstock, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's envoy to Iraq, said in an eulogy.
Meanwhile, more U.N. employees left Iraq after Secretary-General Kofi Annan slashed the already diminished foreign staff.
In Amman, Jordan, a charter plane arrived from Baghdad on Friday carrying U.N. staff, according to a U.N. official in Jordan who spoke on condition of anonymity.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said that over the past 24 hours, the international staff in Iraq was reduced by 10. But he said that figure included three U.N. workers who entered Iraq during that time. When Annan issued the order Thursday to remove about half of the foreign U.N. workers, 42 foreign staffers were in Baghdad and 44 were in the north.
Eckhard said the world body's humanitarian programs would continue with limited international supervision over the 4,233 Iraqis working for the United Nations.
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, told a news conference at the Pentagon that the U.N. decision to pull out more staff will make it harder for the world body to accomplish its mission.
"It's regrettable that the U.N. apparently has decided to reduce still further its presence there," he said. Bremer expressed hope that the world body will "at an early date build those people back up and that capacity back up."
The U.N. headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad has been attacked twice with bombs.
I must have missed that story.
Who won the fight?
While John Holliman was hanging out of the window to get pictures and sound, ole Bernie was cowering.....
You would be correct. I believe most of the A-list press stayed there in '91. My Dad stayed there in '83.
One of the generals there not too long ago referred to these as "miss and run" attacks and attributed them to the lack of courage of their opponent.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.