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| Iraq |
| Another slow day in the Sandbox |
| 2006-08-24 |
| BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Army soldier was killed in fighting during a raid to capture foreign terror suspects south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Thursday, while police freed an Iraqi hostage and arrested his two alleged kidnappers. The soldier was killed Wednesday "when his unit came in contact with enemy forces," the U.S. military command said in a statement. "Two terrorists were also killed during the firefight." "The unit was conducting operations to rid Iraq of foreign terrorists known to be operating in the area," the military said, without giving further details. In southern Iraq, police raided a house on the outskirts of Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, arresting two alleged kidnappers and freeing an Iraqi civilian abducted four days ago, said police Col. Karim al-Zaidi in Basra, the main city in the south. The kidnappers had demanded a ransom from the man's family, al-Zaidi said. Abductions in Iraq are widespread, with many carried out for ransom. Last week, a Catholic priest was kidnapped in Baghdad, and Pope Benedict XVI appealed for his release. Elsewhere in Iraq, police found four handcuffed bodies dumped separately in the streets of Kut, a city 100 miles southeast of Baghdad. All had been shot, said Mahmoud Khazim of the city morgue. Overnight in Baghdad, police said gunmen killed at least three people, two of them in the predominantly Sunni area of Amariyah that has been part of a new security strategy to tackle violence neighborhoods in the capital. Gunmen killed a police captain and wounded his father outside their home in Amariyah on Wednesday night, while an Iraqi soldier was shot dead at a checkpoint in the same western Baghdad neighborhood, said 1st Lt. Maytham Abdul Razzaq. Gunmen also killed a city council member in the upscale Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, Razzaq said. The killings came a day after Iraq's interior minister narrowly escaped a roadside bombing in a mainly Sunni part of Baghdad that U.S. officials said last week had been virtually cleared of death squad cells...repeats self... insurgent sympathizers and extremists as part of a new strategy to secure the capital. About 12,000 additional U.S. and Iraqi troops have been brought into Baghdad as part of the security effort. Political and sectarian violence across Iraq last month claimed 3,500 lives, making July the deadliest month since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Liars. Maybe the worst in several months, but not 3,500. And August looks like it'll be less than July. Iraqi Security Forces and Civilian Deaths Period Total Aug-06 750 Jul-06 1280 Jun-06 870 May-06 1119 Apr-06 1010 Mar-06 1092 Feb-06 846 Jan-06 779 Note: This is an estimate based on news reports. This is not a definitive count. Source: http://icasualties.org/oif/ Worth a look! Since then, Sunni Arab insurgents have been regularly attacking U.S. and Iraqi troops, mostly in the Baghdad area and in the Anbar province to its west. So the civil war is off? Back to attacking real men? No wonder there is so little going on! |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #5 In automobile fatalities alone, the number is over 40,000 - or well over 100 per day. But that's down from about 55,000 per year during the time of the Vietnam war.... |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-08-24 12:56 |
| #4 We should also post non-accidental deaths civilian or military in the CONUS side by side with those in Iraq, on a day-by-day or week-by-week basis, just for comparison. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-08-24 12:14 |
| #3 Good post, Bobby, and thanks again to your son, a hero to us all. The Lions of Islam need to stick to machine gunning children on their way to school. They don't do so well against strong men (and wimmin) armed. |
| Posted by: Matt 2006-08-24 11:22 |
| #2 IIUC the 3500 a day includes ALL deaths from violence, including crime (which is not all that easy to tell from terr violence) bodies that show up at morgues, etc. Sounds like your lower numbers represent incidents reported in the news - bombings, shootings etc. Alot of sectarian killings, IIUC, happen quietly, and dont get counted till the bodies show up at the morgue. OTOH the 3500 is probably in over statement, since the bodies showing up at the morgue include victims of murder having nothing to do with politics, and which were never zero in Iraq. It IS my impression that August will be better than July. Lets hope September represents further improvement. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-08-24 10:04 |
| #1 We're winning ! Of course we wouldn't want the democraps to lose their main campaign issue would we ? |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-08-24 09:37 |