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| Missiles Hit Baghdad Phone Exchange |
| 2004-03-03 |
| Three rockets struck a major telephone exchange Wednesday, knocking out international phone connections for much of the country only days after the system was put back in service, officials said. One Iraqi worker was killed and another injured. Qassim Hadi, an undersecretary with Iraq’s Communication Ministry, said the attack happened just after 7:30 a.m. local time at an exchange in the Mansour district west of the Tigris river. The rockets damaged one of six exchanges that are housed in trailers, said Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Samer Saadoun. There were no arrests, but police were searching for the attacker. Hadi said thousands of people with phone service weren’t able to make international calls. Domestic calls did not appear to be affected. He said the exchange would be repaired, but didn’t have a timeframe. Twelve new telephone exchanges in Baghdad were set up last month, replacing the ones destroyed in the U.S.-led invasion, enabling the Iraqi Telephone and Post Co. provide service for 240,000 lines in and around Baghdad. An estimated 280,000 lines remained out of service, but that was not related to Wednesday’s attack. A call seeking comment from ITPC by The Associated Press wasn’t able to go through. The new switches were installed by the ITPC and Bechtel, through its subcontractor Lucent Technologies, while Globecomm installed an international gateway that will permit long-distance phone calls. |
| Posted by:Chuck Simmins |
| #7 So That's why Lucent's up. Contracting work. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-3-3 11:47:06 PM |
| #6 When enough Iraqis get sick of this shit and start really looking for and fingering (and killing!) the bad guys and the locations of their weapons, it will taper off. A lot of Iraqis know where these assholes are coming from, and where they're hiding out. Saddam ain't coming back, guys - start ratting out your jihadist buddies before they kill you, too. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-3-3 6:15:31 PM |
| #5 bush needs to put politics aside, forget what the eurotrash think or say or any whinning by kerry and put some serious presure on the syrian border. presure that will not end as long as attacks continue in iraq - i would go as far as to say bring the sf forces out into the open in syria and do some serious damage - publically. |
| Posted by: Dan 2004-3-3 5:02:41 PM |
| #4 Iraq's phone system is updated to the benefit of the population and Baath/Al Qaida sympathizers proceed to knock it out almost immediately? If the perpetrators are caught, they should be executed on the spot. This is no longer "resistance" to occupation. These twats are waging war on the Iraqi public, and this should be made nice and clear in the Iraqi media. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-3-3 5:02:25 PM |
| #3 hmm..perhaps I should have actually read the entire article before I posted my comment above. |
| Posted by: B 2004-3-3 4:33:30 PM |
| #2 Al Asshats, Inc. musta read all the positive comments on RB. Henceforth, any good stuff happening in Irak should be kept quiet - don't tell any of the major news outlets lest they shout it from the rooftops and ballyhoo CA progress! Shhhhh. Mumm's the word. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-3-3 4:31:32 PM |
| #1 hmmm..knocking out communications? Makes me wonder about Monsoor's comment that the pilgrimage(sp?) was a "trial run" by Iran. Should I worry? |
| Posted by: B 2004-3-3 4:30:51 PM |