Headlines from Iraq 415

[Angus]

March 6, 2007:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Tuesday in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims streaming toward the holy city of Karbala, killing 93 people in one of several attacks targeting the faithful ahead of a weekend holiday.

The attack came a day after U.S. forces suffered their deadliest day in nearly a month _ nine American soldiers were killed in explosions north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday.

The coordinated attack Tuesday happened on a main street in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Muthana Khalid. He said 93 people were killed and more than 164 wounded.



AP
Nine U.S. soldiers died in two separate incidents north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday.

Six soldiers were killed when a bomb exploded near their vehicles during a combat operation Monday in Salahuddin province, the military said in a statement.

March 5, 2007:

38 Die, 105 Hurt In Baghdad Market Blast

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide car bomber turned a venerable book market into a deadly inferno and gunmen targeted Shiite pilgrims Monday as suspected Sunni insurgents brought major bloodshed back into the lap of their main Shiite rivals. At least 38 people died in the blast and seven pilgrims were killed.

The violence after a relative three-day lull in Baghdad was seen as another salvo in the Sunni extremist campaign to provoke a sectarian civil war that could tear apart the Shiite-led government and erase Washington's plans for Iraq.

March 4, 2007:

MOSUL - Gunmen killed two policemen when they attacked a police station in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - Police found 10 bullet-riddled bodies, including two policemen and four brothers, in different parts of Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded in Karrada district of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding four, police said.

NEAR BAQUBA - A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol in a village near Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one person and wounded three others in al-Kifah street in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A total of 10 bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - A total of nine bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A journalist was shot dead outside his home in a Sunni neighbourhood in western Baghdad, neighbours and colleagues at his newspaper said. Mohan al-Dhaher was a senior editor at the independent al-Mashriq daily.

NEAR TIKRIT - The bodies of two people were found shot dead east of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

March 3, 2007:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen stormed the home of a Sunni family threatened with death for meeting with local Shiites, separating out the women and children and executing six men on Saturday, Iraqi police and military officials said.

The attack near Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of the Iraqi capital, was apparently connected to rising sectarian violence that has included the claimed abduction and execution Friday of at least 14 members of the Shiite-led security forces.

IRBIL, March 3 (KUNA) -- An Iraqi citizen was killed and three others were injured due to an attack in the Huwaijah area, southwest of Kirkuk city in northern Iraq, said an Iraqi police source Saturday.

Meanwhile, the same source indicated that gunmen, disguised as Iraqi soldiers, abducted a local journalist in Ahmad Aga area in Kirkuk city.

Elsewhere in southern Iraq, a bomb planted on the highway between Safwan area and Thee Qar province exploded on a group of Americans killing one and injurying two others.

A spokesman for Al-Basra police force said that the incident occurded on Friday, adding that the Americans were employed by a foreign security company here.

BAGHDAD, March 3 (Xinhua) -- A police commando member was killed and four policemen wounded in two bomb attacks in Baghdadon Saturday, an Interior Ministry source said.

"A roadside bomb went off near a police commando patrol in the Saidiyah neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, damaging a patrol vehicle and killing a commando member aboard," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

BAGHDAD - Three U.S. soldiers were killed on Saturday by a roadside bomb that hit their vehicle in central Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

RAMADI - A suicide car bomb killed 12 people, including three policemen and a child, when it blew up at a police checkpoint in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, police said. Lieutenant Colonel Tareq Yussuf said another 22 people were wounded, including police and civilians.

BAGHDAD - The body of an Iraqi journalist was found on Wednesday in Baghdad's Amil district after he was kidnapped for several days, the Iraqi Association for the Protection of Journalists said. Jamal al-Zubaidi was the editor of the local al-Saffir newspaper.

YUSUFIYA - Insurgents killed six Sunnis from one family in the town of Yusufiya, 15 km (10 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. The Sunnis had received death threats after attending a reconciliation conference with Shi'ites in the area.

LATIFIYA - A roadside bomb killed a woman and her two children whilst they were travelling on foot to commemorate a major Shi'ite event, police said. The attack occurred near the insurgent-stronghold of Latifiya, just south of Baghdad.

TIKRIT - A roadside bomb killed three policemen and wounded three more when it hit a police convoy on the road to Tikrit, police said. The men guards of Major General Hamid Al Namis, provincial head of police in Salahaddin province.

ISKANDARIYA - A mortar barrage killed two people and wounded four in a residential area of Iskandariya, police said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said an airstrike in Arab Jabour in southern Baghdad killed seven al Qaeda suspects thought responsible for a large number of suicide car bombs.

BAGHDAD - A former army officer named Thabed Sultan was kidnapped in Baghdad, a police source said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said a security detainee died at a prison called Camp Cropper from apparent injuries caused by other detainees who assaulted him.

HAWIJA - Gunmen killed one civilian and seriously wounded two others on a commercial street in the Sunni town of Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said. The source said the gunmen were targeting members of an anti-Qaeda tribe.

ISKANDARIYA - Police said they found one unidentified body in the town of Iskandariya, south of Baghdad.

March 2, 2007:

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Morgan C. Tulang, 36, Hilo, Hawaii, died Friday in a non-combat related incident; assigned to the U.S. Central Command Deployment Distribution Operations Center, Kuwait City, Kuwait.

Navy Hospitalman Lucas W.A. Emch, 21, Kent, Ohio, was killed Friday by an explosive in Anbar province; assigned to the 1st Marine Logistics Group, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Army Staff Sgt. Paul M. Latourney, 28, Roselle, Ill., died Friday in Baghdad when his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Army Spc. Luis O. Rodriguez-Contrera, 22, Allentown, Pa., died Friday in Baghdad when his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Marine Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Gould, 28, Longmont, Colo., died Friday during combat operations in Anbar province; assigned to the 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Army Pvt. Wesley J. Williams, 23, Philadelphia, Pa.; died Friday, in Baghdad, of a non-combat related injury; assigned to the 163d Military Intelligence Battalion, 504th Military Intelligence Brigade, Fort Hood, Texas.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 17 in Habibiya, a district in the Shi'ite militia stronghold of Sadr City, a police source said. A Reuters photographer on the scene said it exploded in a used car market.

BAGHDAD - Two U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Another U.S. soldier was wounded.

RAMADI - Gunmen killed two members of the local soccer team during training in the Western Iraqi city of Ramadi, police said. One of the dead was a leading member of the Ramadi Football Club, 27-year-old Mohammed Hamid, shot dead along with his 23-year-old team mate, Mohammed Mishaan.

BALAD - Police said six bodies were found in Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, on Thursday.

BAQUBA - Fourteen Iraqi police from a rapid reaction force based in Diyala province north of Baghdad went missing after leaving their base on Thursday to go on leave, a police source in Diyala said. An al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq said in an Internet statement it had kidnapped 18 people working for the Interior Ministry in Diyala province, saying it was in revenge for a reported rape of a woman by police.

BASRA - Mortars hit a British base in the Shatt al-Arab Hotel in central Basra, starting a fire, but there were no casualties.

FALLUJA - A U.S. marine was killed during combat operations on Wednesday in Iraq's western Anbar province, the U.S. military said.

ISKANDARIYA - The U.S. military said insurgents fired mortar rounds that killed four Iraqi civilians and wounded 10 in Iskandariya. A police source had said eight people were killed in clashes there and it was not clear if the reports were referring to the same incident.

[JoeMama]

Iraq updates are always a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy day.

Let freedom reign!

[Angus]

Iraq updates are always a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy day.

Let freedom reign!

A lot of this good news goes unreported by the liberal press.

Contrast the reality of around 567 dead, injured, missing, turned up dead, kidnapped, etc, etc all in only 5 days with the President's statement today:

"It's too early to judge the success of this operation ... But even at this early hour there are some encouraging signs."

One wonders exactly how many would have to die for him to consider the signs to be discouraging?

[Green Lantern]

They did not die, they were collaterally damaged.

[Angus]

March 7, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber killed more than 30 people Wednesday in a popular cafe northeast of Baghdad, and three American soldiers died when a roadside bomb exploded northwest of the capital, authorities said.

[That brings the total to +/- 600 since March 2]

March 6, 2007:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Tuesday in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims streaming toward the holy city of Karbala, killing 93 people in one of several attacks targeting the faithful ahead of a weekend holiday.

The attack came a day after U.S. forces suffered their deadliest day in nearly a month _ nine American soldiers were killed in explosions north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday.

The coordinated attack Tuesday happened on a main street in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Muthana Khalid. He said 93 people were killed and more than 164 wounded.



AP
Nine U.S. soldiers died in two separate incidents north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday.

Six soldiers were killed when a bomb exploded near their vehicles during a combat operation Monday in Salahuddin province, the military said in a statement.

March 5, 2007:

38 Die, 105 Hurt In Baghdad Market Blast

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide car bomber turned a venerable book market into a deadly inferno and gunmen targeted Shiite pilgrims Monday as suspected Sunni insurgents brought major bloodshed back into the lap of their main Shiite rivals. At least 38 people died in the blast and seven pilgrims were killed.

The violence after a relative three-day lull in Baghdad was seen as another salvo in the Sunni extremist campaign to provoke a sectarian civil war that could tear apart the Shiite-led government and erase Washington's plans for Iraq.

March 4, 2007:

MOSUL - Gunmen killed two policemen when they attacked a police station in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - Police found 10 bullet-riddled bodies, including two policemen and four brothers, in different parts of Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded in Karrada district of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding four, police said.

NEAR BAQUBA - A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol in a village near Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one person and wounded three others in al-Kifah street in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A total of 10 bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - A total of nine bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A journalist was shot dead outside his home in a Sunni neighbourhood in western Baghdad, neighbours and colleagues at his newspaper said. Mohan al-Dhaher was a senior editor at the independent al-Mashriq daily.

NEAR TIKRIT - The bodies of two people were found shot dead east of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

March 3, 2007:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen stormed the home of a Sunni family threatened with death for meeting with local Shiites, separating out the women and children and executing six men on Saturday, Iraqi police and military officials said.

The attack near Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of the Iraqi capital, was apparently connected to rising sectarian violence that has included the claimed abduction and execution Friday of at least 14 members of the Shiite-led security forces.

IRBIL, March 3 (KUNA) -- An Iraqi citizen was killed and three others were injured due to an attack in the Huwaijah area, southwest of Kirkuk city in northern Iraq, said an Iraqi police source Saturday.

Meanwhile, the same source indicated that gunmen, disguised as Iraqi soldiers, abducted a local journalist in Ahmad Aga area in Kirkuk city.

Elsewhere in southern Iraq, a bomb planted on the highway between Safwan area and Thee Qar province exploded on a group of Americans killing one and injurying two others.

A spokesman for Al-Basra police force said that the incident occurded on Friday, adding that the Americans were employed by a foreign security company here.

BAGHDAD, March 3 (Xinhua) -- A police commando member was killed and four policemen wounded in two bomb attacks in Baghdadon Saturday, an Interior Ministry source said.

"A roadside bomb went off near a police commando patrol in the Saidiyah neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, damaging a patrol vehicle and killing a commando member aboard," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

BAGHDAD - Three U.S. soldiers were killed on Saturday by a roadside bomb that hit their vehicle in central Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

RAMADI - A suicide car bomb killed 12 people, including three policemen and a child, when it blew up at a police checkpoint in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, police said. Lieutenant Colonel Tareq Yussuf said another 22 people were wounded, including police and civilians.

BAGHDAD - The body of an Iraqi journalist was found on Wednesday in Baghdad's Amil district after he was kidnapped for several days, the Iraqi Association for the Protection of Journalists said. Jamal al-Zubaidi was the editor of the local al-Saffir newspaper.

YUSUFIYA - Insurgents killed six Sunnis from one family in the town of Yusufiya, 15 km (10 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. The Sunnis had received death threats after attending a reconciliation conference with Shi'ites in the area.

LATIFIYA - A roadside bomb killed a woman and her two children whilst they were travelling on foot to commemorate a major Shi'ite event, police said. The attack occurred near the insurgent-stronghold of Latifiya, just south of Baghdad.

TIKRIT - A roadside bomb killed three policemen and wounded three more when it hit a police convoy on the road to Tikrit, police said. The men guards of Major General Hamid Al Namis, provincial head of police in Salahaddin province.

ISKANDARIYA - A mortar barrage killed two people and wounded four in a residential area of Iskandariya, police said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said an airstrike in Arab Jabour in southern Baghdad killed seven al Qaeda suspects thought responsible for a large number of suicide car bombs.

BAGHDAD - A former army officer named Thabed Sultan was kidnapped in Baghdad, a police source said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said a security detainee died at a prison called Camp Cropper from apparent injuries caused by other detainees who assaulted him.

HAWIJA - Gunmen killed one civilian and seriously wounded two others on a commercial street in the Sunni town of Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said. The source said the gunmen were targeting members of an anti-Qaeda tribe.

ISKANDARIYA - Police said they found one unidentified body in the town of Iskandariya, south of Baghdad.

March 2, 2007:

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Morgan C. Tulang, 36, Hilo, Hawaii, died Friday in a non-combat related incident; assigned to the U.S. Central Command Deployment Distribution Operations Center, Kuwait City, Kuwait.

Navy Hospitalman Lucas W.A. Emch, 21, Kent, Ohio, was killed Friday by an explosive in Anbar province; assigned to the 1st Marine Logistics Group, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Army Staff Sgt. Paul M. Latourney, 28, Roselle, Ill., died Friday in Baghdad when his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Army Spc. Luis O. Rodriguez-Contrera, 22, Allentown, Pa., died Friday in Baghdad when his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Marine Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Gould, 28, Longmont, Colo., died Friday during combat operations in Anbar province; assigned to the 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Army Pvt. Wesley J. Williams, 23, Philadelphia, Pa.; died Friday, in Baghdad, of a non-combat related injury; assigned to the 163d Military Intelligence Battalion, 504th Military Intelligence Brigade, Fort Hood, Texas.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 17 in Habibiya, a district in the Shi'ite militia stronghold of Sadr City, a police source said. A Reuters photographer on the scene said it exploded in a used car market.

BAGHDAD - Two U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Another U.S. soldier was wounded.

RAMADI - Gunmen killed two members of the local soccer team during training in the Western Iraqi city of Ramadi, police said. One of the dead was a leading member of the Ramadi Football Club, 27-year-old Mohammed Hamid, shot dead along with his 23-year-old team mate, Mohammed Mishaan.

BALAD - Police said six bodies were found in Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, on Thursday.

BAQUBA - Fourteen Iraqi police from a rapid reaction force based in Diyala province north of Baghdad went missing after leaving their base on Thursday to go on leave, a police source in Diyala said. An al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq said in an Internet statement it had kidnapped 18 people working for the Interior Ministry in Diyala province, saying it was in revenge for a reported rape of a woman by police.

BASRA - Mortars hit a British base in the Shatt al-Arab Hotel in central Basra, starting a fire, but there were no casualties.

FALLUJA - A U.S. marine was killed during combat operations on Wednesday in Iraq's western Anbar province, the U.S. military said.

ISKANDARIYA - The U.S. military said insurgents fired mortar rounds that killed four Iraqi civilians and wounded 10 in Iskandariya. A police source had said eight people were killed in clashes there and it was not clear if the reports were referring to the same incident.

[Bellowing4DaBills]

"Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, uh, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone."

Laura Bush
2/26/2007

[Matt]

I don't think Bush relates deaths to discouragement or a poor job.

He certainly didn't in New Orleans, and that's apart of his own country.

[Angus]

"Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, uh, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone."

Laura Bush
2/26/2007

Yeah, imagine that, one lousy bomb with a hundred or so dead and right away everyone is discouraged. What a bunch of wussies.

[Angus]

This brings the total to +/- 870

March 11, 2007

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber rammed a truck carrying Shiite pilgrims returning from a religious commemoration Sunday, killing at least 32 people a day after Iraqi leaders warned sectarian violence could spread through the Middle East.

Hundreds of pilgrims were killed by suspected Sunni insurgents as they traveled to the ceremonies in the holy city of Karbala, where millions had gathered for two days of commemorations, and their return journey was equally treacherous.

The truck was bringing about 70 men and boys home and had reached central Baghdad when it was blasted by the car bomber. At least 32 people were killed and 24 were injured, police and hospital officials said.

March 10, 2007

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 15 people were found shot dead in different parts of Baghdad on Saturday, a police source said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in the Abu Ghraib district on the western outskirts of Baghdad, killing one policeman and two civilians, a police source said.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed six Iraqi soldiers and wounded some 20 civilians when his car was stopped by a military checkpoint at an entrance to the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, the U.S. military said. Iraqi sources gave widely differing numbers of casualties in the blast, as is common in Iraq.

KIRKUK - A rocket killed three people and wounded 36 when it hit a bus station in a mostly Kurdish area of the northern city of Kirkuk, a hospital source said.

BAGHDAD - Two blasts that sounded like mortars rocked the building where delegates from regional and world powers were meeting to discuss stabilising Iraq, Reuters witnesses said. There was no immediate word on casualties.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed two pilgrims and wounded four when they attacked their vehicle near Sadr City, police said.

BAGHDAD - A Katyusha rocket killed one pilgrim and wounded five others when it landed in Baghdad's Shi'ite Kadhimiya district, police sources said.

LATIFIYA - Gunmen killed one Shi'ite pilgrim and wounded three others in the town of Latifiya, just south of Baghdad, as they were returning to the capital from a major Shi'ite event in Kerbala, police said.

RAMADI - A roadside bomb killed three policemen and wounded one in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Friday, police said.

MAHMUDIYA - Police said they found the bodies of two men in the town of Mahmudiya, just south of Baghdad. The unidentified victims died from gunshot wounds.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed one soldier and wounded two others when he blew up his vehicle at an Iraqi Army checkpoint in western Baghdad's Jamia district, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one civilian and wounded two others when it blew up in a central Baghdad intersection, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded two Iraqi soldiers when it blew up near their patrol in western Baghdad's Yarmouk district, police said.

March 9, 2007

BAGHDAD - Ten bodies were found shot dead in different parts of Baghdad on Friday, apparent victims of sectarian death squads, a police source said.

FALLUJA - A U.S. marine was killed in combat in Anbar province in western Iraq, the U.S. military said.

HIBHIB - Ten Iraqi policemen were missing after insurgents attacked a police station north of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding three more, a police source said. The source said a group of insurgents stormed the police station in Hibhib, in Diyala province.

March 8, 2007

MOSUL - A car bomb targeting a police patrol killed two policemen and wounded seven civilians in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

SHIRQAT - Gunmen killed two policemen when they attacked a police checkpoint in the town of Shirqat, south of Mosul, police said.

BALAD - Gunmen opened fire at an army checkpoint, killing two soldiers and wounding three others in the town of Balad, 80 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BALAD - Gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier on Wednesday in the town of Balad, police said.

HAWIJA - Gunmen killed two Iraqi soldiers in a drive-by shooting in the town of Hawija, police said.

DHULUIYA - Dozens of militants stormed two police stations and confiscated all the weapons there and kidnapped a policeman in the town of Dhuluiya, 80 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, local police said.

HAWIJA - A roadside bomb killed two civilians in the town of Hawija, 70 km (40 miles) southwest of Baghdad, police said.

HAWIJA - Gunmen killed a man in the town of Hawija, police said.


March 7, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber killed more than 30 people Wednesday in a popular cafe northeast of Baghdad, and three American soldiers died when a roadside bomb exploded northwest of the capital, authorities said.

[That brings the total to +/- 600 since March 2][/QUOTE]


March 6, 2007:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Tuesday in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims streaming toward the holy city of Karbala, killing 93 people in one of several attacks targeting the faithful ahead of a weekend holiday.

The attack came a day after U.S. forces suffered their deadliest day in nearly a month _ nine American soldiers were killed in explosions north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday.

The coordinated attack Tuesday happened on a main street in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Muthana Khalid. He said 93 people were killed and more than 164 wounded.



AP
Nine U.S. soldiers died in two separate incidents north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday.

Six soldiers were killed when a bomb exploded near their vehicles during a combat operation Monday in Salahuddin province, the military said in a statement.

March 5, 2007:

38 Die, 105 Hurt In Baghdad Market Blast

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide car bomber turned a venerable book market into a deadly inferno and gunmen targeted Shiite pilgrims Monday as suspected Sunni insurgents brought major bloodshed back into the lap of their main Shiite rivals. At least 38 people died in the blast and seven pilgrims were killed.

The violence after a relative three-day lull in Baghdad was seen as another salvo in the Sunni extremist campaign to provoke a sectarian civil war that could tear apart the Shiite-led government and erase Washington's plans for Iraq.

March 4, 2007:

MOSUL - Gunmen killed two policemen when they attacked a police station in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - Police found 10 bullet-riddled bodies, including two policemen and four brothers, in different parts of Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded in Karrada district of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding four, police said.

NEAR BAQUBA - A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol in a village near Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one person and wounded three others in al-Kifah street in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A total of 10 bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - A total of nine bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A journalist was shot dead outside his home in a Sunni neighbourhood in western Baghdad, neighbours and colleagues at his newspaper said. Mohan al-Dhaher was a senior editor at the independent al-Mashriq daily.

NEAR TIKRIT - The bodies of two people were found shot dead east of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

March 3, 2007:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen stormed the home of a Sunni family threatened with death for meeting with local Shiites, separating out the women and children and executing six men on Saturday, Iraqi police and military officials said.

The attack near Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of the Iraqi capital, was apparently connected to rising sectarian violence that has included the claimed abduction and execution Friday of at least 14 members of the Shiite-led security forces.

IRBIL, March 3 (KUNA) -- An Iraqi citizen was killed and three others were injured due to an attack in the Huwaijah area, southwest of Kirkuk city in northern Iraq, said an Iraqi police source Saturday.

Meanwhile, the same source indicated that gunmen, disguised as Iraqi soldiers, abducted a local journalist in Ahmad Aga area in Kirkuk city.

Elsewhere in southern Iraq, a bomb planted on the highway between Safwan area and Thee Qar province exploded on a group of Americans killing one and injurying two others.

A spokesman for Al-Basra police force said that the incident occurded on Friday, adding that the Americans were employed by a foreign security company here.

BAGHDAD, March 3 (Xinhua) -- A police commando member was killed and four policemen wounded in two bomb attacks in Baghdadon Saturday, an Interior Ministry source said.

"A roadside bomb went off near a police commando patrol in the Saidiyah neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, damaging a patrol vehicle and killing a commando member aboard," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

BAGHDAD - Three U.S. soldiers were killed on Saturday by a roadside bomb that hit their vehicle in central Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

RAMADI - A suicide car bomb killed 12 people, including three policemen and a child, when it blew up at a police checkpoint in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, police said. Lieutenant Colonel Tareq Yussuf said another 22 people were wounded, including police and civilians.

BAGHDAD - The body of an Iraqi journalist was found on Wednesday in Baghdad's Amil district after he was kidnapped for several days, the Iraqi Association for the Protection of Journalists said. Jamal al-Zubaidi was the editor of the local al-Saffir newspaper.

YUSUFIYA - Insurgents killed six Sunnis from one family in the town of Yusufiya, 15 km (10 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. The Sunnis had received death threats after attending a reconciliation conference with Shi'ites in the area.

LATIFIYA - A roadside bomb killed a woman and her two children whilst they were travelling on foot to commemorate a major Shi'ite event, police said. The attack occurred near the insurgent-stronghold of Latifiya, just south of Baghdad.

TIKRIT - A roadside bomb killed three policemen and wounded three more when it hit a police convoy on the road to Tikrit, police said. The men guards of Major General Hamid Al Namis, provincial head of police in Salahaddin province.

ISKANDARIYA - A mortar barrage killed two people and wounded four in a residential area of Iskandariya, police said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said an airstrike in Arab Jabour in southern Baghdad killed seven al Qaeda suspects thought responsible for a large number of suicide car bombs.

BAGHDAD - A former army officer named Thabed Sultan was kidnapped in Baghdad, a police source said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said a security detainee died at a prison called Camp Cropper from apparent injuries caused by other detainees who assaulted him.

HAWIJA - Gunmen killed one civilian and seriously wounded two others on a commercial street in the Sunni town of Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said. The source said the gunmen were targeting members of an anti-Qaeda tribe.

ISKANDARIYA - Police said they found one unidentified body in the town of Iskandariya, south of Baghdad.

March 2, 2007:

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Morgan C. Tulang, 36, Hilo, Hawaii, died Friday in a non-combat related incident; assigned to the U.S. Central Command Deployment Distribution Operations Center, Kuwait City, Kuwait.

Navy Hospitalman Lucas W.A. Emch, 21, Kent, Ohio, was killed Friday by an explosive in Anbar province; assigned to the 1st Marine Logistics Group, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Army Staff Sgt. Paul M. Latourney, 28, Roselle, Ill., died Friday in Baghdad when his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Army Spc. Luis O. Rodriguez-Contrera, 22, Allentown, Pa., died Friday in Baghdad when his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Marine Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Gould, 28, Longmont, Colo., died Friday during combat operations in Anbar province; assigned to the 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Army Pvt. Wesley J. Williams, 23, Philadelphia, Pa.; died Friday, in Baghdad, of a non-combat related injury; assigned to the 163d Military Intelligence Battalion, 504th Military Intelligence Brigade, Fort Hood, Texas.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 17 in Habibiya, a district in the Shi'ite militia stronghold of Sadr City, a police source said. A Reuters photographer on the scene said it exploded in a used car market.

BAGHDAD - Two U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Another U.S. soldier was wounded.

RAMADI - Gunmen killed two members of the local soccer team during training in the Western Iraqi city of Ramadi, police said. One of the dead was a leading member of the Ramadi Football Club, 27-year-old Mohammed Hamid, shot dead along with his 23-year-old team mate, Mohammed Mishaan.

BALAD - Police said six bodies were found in Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, on Thursday.

BAQUBA - Fourteen Iraqi police from a rapid reaction force based in Diyala province north of Baghdad went missing after leaving their base on Thursday to go on leave, a police source in Diyala said. An al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq said in an Internet statement it had kidnapped 18 people working for the Interior Ministry in Diyala province, saying it was in revenge for a reported rape of a woman by police.

BASRA - Mortars hit a British base in the Shatt al-Arab Hotel in central Basra, starting a fire, but there were no casualties.

FALLUJA - A U.S. marine was killed during combat operations on Wednesday in Iraq's western Anbar province, the U.S. military said.

ISKANDARIYA - The U.S. military said insurgents fired mortar rounds that killed four Iraqi civilians and wounded 10 in Iskandariya. A police source had said eight people were killed in clashes there and it was not clear if the reports were referring to the same incident.

[uppy]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8999837


New Orleans murder rate on the rise again
Homicide rate nowhere near ’94 peak but still 10 times national average
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:20 p.m. PT Aug 18, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - Last year, university researchers conducted an experiment in which police fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood in a single afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire.

New Orleans residents are reluctant to come forward as witnesses, fearing retaliation. And experts say that is one of several reasons homicides are on the rise in the Big Easy at a time when other cities are seeing their murder rates plummet to levels not seen in decades.

The city’s murder rate is still far lower than a decade ago, when New Orleans was the country’s murder capital. But in recent years, the city’s homicide rate has climbed again to nearly 10 times the national average.

“We’re going in the reverse of 46 of the top 50 cities in the United States. Almost everyone is going down, but we’re going up,” said criminologist Peter Scharf. “There is something going on in New Orleans that is not going on elsewhere.”

Many of the killings are related to drugs and gangs — but police say more are simply disputes that get out of hand.

Along with reluctant witnesses, experts say the city has too few police and inexperienced prosecutors. Coming up with more cash has been a chronic problem for money-pinched New Orleans, which typically lurches from budget to budget.

......

[shiva2999]

Good post uppy!

Chaos, deprivation and misery will make violent crime rise every time.

[35Pete]

I don't think Bush relates deaths to discouragement or a poor job.

He certainly didn't in New Orleans, and that's apart of his own country.

What do you think of the job that the mayor of New Orleans did or the Governer of the state?

Did they drop the ball too?

[Angus]

What do you think of the job that the mayor of New Orleans did or the Governer of the state?

Did they drop the ball too?

I think people focus too much on the point when the hurricane struck and not enough on the pre-Hurricane planning, the whole infrastructure for handling this kind of a disaster that was in place long before Katrina struck. The inadequacies there doomed the rescue efforts from the start. If state and local officials could handle disasters like this, we wouldn't have FEMA and national disaster plans. I am sure that Blanco and Nagin made mistakes and I am just as sure that the Bush administration made even bigger ones and they were last hope for New Orleans.

Strange really. In a very general way, Bush seems to make the same mistakes over and over again, just in different contexts. "Failure of imagination", I think, is the phrase of art they decided on using to describe not having anticpated a 911 type of attack. Their defense on Katrina has been that no one imagined a hurricane that big or that it would top the levies. I guess in Iraq, no one imagined an insurgency this virulent, this deadly, this pro-longed. They never imagined Saddam didn't have WMD's either. Not their fault they never imagined that a famouse vet hospital like Walter Reed would turn out to be a rat infested hell hole.

In back of all that "failing to imagine", what you and I might call "****** ups", the Bush administration has a well deserved reputation for hiring unqualified cronies and young republican apparatchiks like Michael Brown and the pack of wet behind the ears born agains who ran post war Iraq as a sort of prolonged internship. Loyalty and cronyism, not competence is the main job qualification for this administration. As such, there is no one capable of rallying and agency or troops past one of these "failures to imagine" and cobbling together an effective response. No one can predict the future but once it happens, competent people find a way.

Ask all those fired US Attorneys about what happens to competent people in this administration who won't mop up the testicular sweat of some highly placed republican leader who calls for a towel boy. "Won't investigate, charge and arrest a democratic politician simply because there is no evidence of wrong doing? What the eff is the matter with those US Atty.'s, don't they know there is an election on? Fire 'em!"

I guess they failed to imagine that hiring hacks might bite them in the petard sooner or later.

[35Pete]

OK Angus. I'm a patient guy but many here are not so I'll summarize your essay in one statement.

Bush is a bad guy......Okaaay. Check.

Now. How about answering the question. Were the mayor of New Orleans and the Governer of LA. culpable in this mess?