More to the Story
It’s a short two days ago but it may as well be a week or two the way news runs in and out of our minds like bad Mexican food.
On Jan.28 five U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush in Iraq when insurgents set off a roadside explosive and then laid down heavy gunfire, shooting from a nearby mosque. Today the Department of Defense released the names of the five who were killed.
The soldiers were identified as Sgt. James E. Craig, 26, of Hollywood, Calif.; Staff Sgt. Gary W. Jeffries, 37, of Roscoe, Texas; Spc. Evan A. Marshall, 21, of Athens, Ga.; Pfc. Brandon A. Meyer, 20, of Orange, Calif. and Pvt. Joshua A. R. Young, 21, of Riddle, Ore.
According the Agence France Presse, the French version of the Associated Press, a US military spokeswoman in northern Iraq, Major Peggy Kageleiry, said the soldiers had been conducting a mounted patrol when their vehicle detonated a roadside bomb, killing the five soldiers.
“Insurgents attacked the other soldiers in the patrol with small arms fire from a nearby mosque. Iraqi army forces and coalition forces secured the area and returned fire on the insurgents. The Iraqi army entered the mosque, but the insurgents had fled the area,” Major Kageleiry said. “The insurgents are willing to desecrate a place of worship by using it to attack soldiers to further their agenda.”
AFP reported Iraqi police as saying that fighting broke out that day between US troops and unidentified armed men in eastern Haysuma neighborhood, a known Al-Qaeda bastion, but gave no other details. Iraqi and US forces are engaged in an extensive operation against Al-Qaeda in Mosul as part of a nationwide crackdown on the jihadists codenamed Operation Phantom Phoenix launched on January 8.
The latest US deaths bring to 3,940 the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on figures compiled by an independent website. Al-Qaeda is blamed by American commanders for much of the violence still shaking Iraq.
The attack on the troops came days after the city was rocked by bombs that killed dozens, including a police chief, AFP reported. It said that Iraq’s Defense Minister Abdel Qader Jassim Mohammed said the situation in Mosul is “worse than imagined.” The minister was sharply critical of the method of the Iraqi army’s deployment in the city.
Last week, AFP reported, US military officials said a cache of munitions stored by insurgents blew up in a building in west Mosul’s Zanjili suburb, leaving a massive crater and damaging about 100 surrounding houses. A suicide bomber killed provincial police chief Brigadier General Salah al-Juburi and two other officers the next day when they went to inspect the carnage.
Iraqi officials put the toll from Wednesday’s blast at 35 people killed and 217 wounded, but the Iraqi Red Crescent—the Muslim version of the Red Cross—in a report on its website said the toll was much higher, according to the AFP. “Many families had buried their killed relatives immediately after the attack without getting them registered,” it said. “This has brought the estimate of the number of killed people to 60; most of them were children, women and elderly,” the Red Crescent officials said. “At least 280 people were wounded in the attack; some of them are in a very critical situation. It is expected that there are still dead bodies buried under the rubble.”
Posted by Bryan McKenzie at 11:07 PM. Filed under: Tids and Bits •
