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| Friday, 9 January 2004 |
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Mortar attack wounds 35 US soldiers WASHINGTON, Thursday (AFP) A mortar attack on a US logistics base in Baghdad Wednesday night wounded 35 US soldiers, the US military said. About six mortars struck Logistical Base Seitz west of Baghdad in the attack, the military said in a statement released here. "Thirty five soldiers assigned to the 3rd Corps Support Command were wounded by a mortar attack at approximately 6:45 pm," the military said in a statement. "I'm told some were lightly wounded and released, and others were more seriously wounded and admitted to hospital," said Lieutenant Colonel James Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman. The military said they were given first aid and then evacuated from the base for further medical treatment. In other developments, several Iraqis were reported killed in the country over the past 24 hours as violence continued to claim victims. Assailants raked a checkpoint with bullets, killing a policeman and a civilian near the northern city of Kirkuk. A firefight between US forces and guerrillas in the restive town of Fallujah left an Iraqi couple dead late Tuesday, Iraqi police and witnesses said, although the US military was unable to confirm the accounts. Elsewhere, saboteurs blew up a pipeline 135 kilometres (85 miles) west of Kirkuk near the Syrian border, a senior Iraqi oil official told AFP Wednesday. Meanwhile the United States said it would launch a carrot-and-stick drive to secure lasting peace in Iraq by cracking down harder on guerrillas while freeing hundreds of prisoners deemed low-security threats. "It is time for reconciliation, time for Iraqis to make common cause," Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer told a news conference. About 500 Iraqis held as low-level security threats in the last eight months are due to be released. Some 9,000 prisoners are being held by U.S.-led forces and many more have been detained and released since Saddam Hussein was ousted in April. "In a gesture to give impetus to those Iraqis who wish to reconcile with their countrymen, the (U.S-led) coalition will permit some currently detained offenders to return to their homes and families," said Bremer. He said those suspected of serious violent crimes would not be freed. "This is not a programme for those with blood-stained hands. No person directly involved in the death or serious bodily harm to any human being will be released." Adnan Pachachi, president of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said 100 prisoners would be freed on Thursday and thousands more soon. "I think there has been great joy in Iraq for many families who have lost contact with their dear ones for several months," he told CNN television. "There is a promise that several thousand detainees may be released in the next few months." Bremer said the prisoner releases would be accompanied by a stepped up crackdown on remaining die-hard insurgents, in what a coalition official described as a "carrot-and-stick" approach. As well as a $10 million reward already offered for the capture of Saddam's chief deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, $1 million bounties have been put on the heads of 12 others still at large on Washington's list of 55 most wanted Iraqis. Meanwhile One of the biggest movement of US forces since World War II gathered steam with the departure to Iraq of infantry troops from the elite 82nd Airborne Division, as returning soldiers were welcomed home with open arms at an army base in Kentucky. The soldiers were part of a rotation of US forces that will move some 250,000 troops into and out of Iraq and Afghanistan by May, a massive logistical undertaking that some have likened to a two-way invasion of Normandy. The estimated 700 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who arrived at Fort Campbell, Kentucky Wednesday were the first of some 19,000 soldiers from the division who will be returning from Iraq by the end of March, an army spokeswoman said. "Clearly we're not going to bring 19,000 of these puppies home in one day. But this is a pretty good signal for the start of the redeployment," said Master Sergeant Kelly Tyler. As those soldiers fell into the arms of family members, several hundred other soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division boarded military flights at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina for a four to six month stint in Iraq, army officials said. |
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