Post by Moses on Dec 21, 2004 12:27:09 GMT -5
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Rockets struck a mess tent at a military base in Mosul where hundreds of U.S. soldiers had just sat down to lunch Tuesday, and military officials said at least 20 people were killed and more than 60 were wounded. A radical Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility.
The dead included U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army, said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul.
The attack came the same day that British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad and described the ongoing violence in Iraq as a "battle between democracy and terror."
Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul, reported that 24 were killed in the attack at Forward Operating Base Marez, including two from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion, which had just sat down to eat. He reported 64 were wounded, and civilians may have been among them, he said.
One Pentagon official put the death toll at 22; another military official said it was around 20.
Officials could not break down the toll of dead or wounded among the groups. Reports also differed as to whether mortars were used in the attack on the camp, which is based outside the predominantly Sunni Muslim city about 220 miles north of Baghdad.
The base, also known as the al-Ghizlani military camp, is used by both U.S. troops and the interim Iraqi government's security forces.
The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats as a fireball enveloped the top of the tent and shrapnel sprayed into the area, Redmon said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Rockets struck a mess tent at a military base in Mosul where hundreds of U.S. soldiers had just sat down to lunch Tuesday, and military officials said at least 20 people were killed and more than 60 were wounded. A radical Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility.
The dead included U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army, said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul.
The attack came the same day that British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad and described the ongoing violence in Iraq as a "battle between democracy and terror."
Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul, reported that 24 were killed in the attack at Forward Operating Base Marez, including two from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion, which had just sat down to eat. He reported 64 were wounded, and civilians may have been among them, he said.
One Pentagon official put the death toll at 22; another military official said it was around 20.
Officials could not break down the toll of dead or wounded among the groups. Reports also differed as to whether mortars were used in the attack on the camp, which is based outside the predominantly Sunni Muslim city about 220 miles north of Baghdad.
The base, also known as the al-Ghizlani military camp, is used by both U.S. troops and the interim Iraqi government's security forces.
The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats as a fireball enveloped the top of the tent and shrapnel sprayed into the area, Redmon said.