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| Iraq |
| 6 US troops killed, Zarqawi aide captured |
| 2006-04-03 |
| The US military yesterday announced the deaths of six of its troops across Iraq, including two pilots of an Apache helicopter that was shot down by insurgents. The announcement comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her British counterpart Jack Straw made a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday. The US military said the bodies of two pilots of the Apache Longbow helicopter, that crashed on Saturday evening after coming under enemy fire, were recovered. The military also announced the deaths of four more troops since Thursday, including two soldiers killed together late on Saturday by a roadside bomb attack during a foot patrol in central Baghdad. An American soldier died near Kirkuk, northern Iraq, and the other was killed in combat in the restive western province of Al Anbar. Twelve Iraqis were killed in violence yesterday, while insurgents blew up a Shi'ite mosque near Baquba, on Saturday. Meanwhile, bodies of at least 42 men have been found in several neighbourhoods of Baghdad since Saturday. Frustrated by Iraq's failure to form a government, the chief US and British diplomats told squabbling leaders yesterday that it was time to pick a governing coalition. Rice was careful to say the US did not want to interfere in the democratic process, yet harped on Prime Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari's failure to organise a unity government. Shi'ite politicians are going public with demands that Al Jaafari withdraw his candidacy to head the next government. A third Shi'ite MP, Sheikh Jalal Al Deen Al Saghir, called yesterday for Jaafari to withdraw his candidacy to head the next government. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, announced the arrest of an unidentified aide to Al Qaeda in Iraq's leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi in Baghdad's predominantly western Sunni neighbourhood of Jamaa. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 Cell phones are fun as well. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-04-03 21:54 |
| #1 I hope the aide had his laptop handy when he was caught. More fun than a barrel of monkeys, laptops are... or so I've heard. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-04-03 21:50 |