Dozens Die in Violence In Iraq
Missile Downs U.S. Helicopter
Iraqis shovel debris from their charred shops after a mortar shell blasted a commercial street in Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad. No casualties were reported.
(By Mohammed Adnan -- Associated Press)
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Thursday, November 3, 2005
BAGHDAD, Nov. 2 -- A suicide bomber exploded a minibus outside of a Shiite Muslim mosque south of Baghdad Wednesday, killing at least 20 people, while violence elsewhere in Iraq claimed the lives of four U.S. service members and more than a dozen Iraqi civilians and soldiers.
Two of the Americans died Wednesday morning when their helicopter reportedly was downed by a missile near Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold west of the capital. Hospital officials and residents of the area said that U.S. warplanes returned for a retaliatory strike later and dropped at least two bombs near the crash site, killing 20 people. A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said he had no information about the strike, which could not be independently confirmed.
The 5 p.m. blast outside the mosque in Musayyib, 35 miles south of Baghdad, came as worshipers were heading inside for sunset prayers to mark the end of their daily fast -- a central ritual of the holy month of Ramadan, which ends Thursday for Iraq's Sunni Muslims and Friday for Shiites. The Babil provincial police spokesman, Capt. Muthanna Ahmed, said a suicide bomber blew up a minibus in a square outside the mosque that was crowded with people from a neighboring bus station and grocery store. He said 20 people were killed and 64 were wounded.
The mosque was the site of a deadly explosion in July, when a suicide bomber detonated himself at a nearby gas station, blowing up a fuel tanker and killing at least 54 people.
Witnesses said the helicopter crash occurred during a clash between a U.S. convoy and insurgents from al Qaeda in Iraq, the radical Islamic group led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian. The incident occurred in Albu Obaid, a small town east of Ramadi, in the predominantly Sunni Arab province of Anbar, a stronghold of the insurgency.
"I saw the helicopter burning and falling down during clashes between a U.S. convoy and a group of Zarqawi's armed men," said Salah Otaiwi, 24, who lives in the neighborhood where the helicopter crashed.
Lt. Saad Hussein Dawood, a local police officer, said the helicopter was downed by a Strela missile, a shoulder-fired, heat-seeking projectile that was mass-produced by the Soviets in the late 1960s. He said it appeared that the helicopter was lured into the area.
"I think it was a clever ambush the Marines fell in," Dawood said. "The armed men shot at the convoy to make the helicopter hover over the area."
His account could not be independently confirmed.
The U.S. military identified the helicopter as an AH-1W Super Cobra, a two-person attack helicopter that can be armed with a wide variety of rockets and missiles. Two crew members from the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, died in the crash, according to a military statement.
The statement did not identify the cause of the crash, saying simply that it "occurred while the two-man crew was flying in support of security and stabilization operations." The cause of the crash is under investigation, the statement said.
Khalaf Abu Hussein, a local resident, said he and his family were still in bed when the helicopter crashed into their garden.
