2 G.I.’s, Throats Slashed, Found Dead After Rock-Throwing Attack On Car In Northern C

[Hannibal]

By Ian Fisher and Dexter Filkins

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 23 — Three American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Sunday, including two whose throats were slashed after they came under attack in the northern city of Mosul with rocks and gunfire, a military official said.

In Baquba, a city north of Baghdad where at least five people were killed in a suicide bombing on Saturday, a soldier from the Fourth Infantry Division was killed Sunday by a roadside bomb, the American military reported. Two other soldiers were injured.

In Mosul, the soldiers' car crashed after they were attacked with rocks, the military official said, and it was uncertain if they were killed by the accident, the later gunfire or by knife wounds. Witnesses in Mosul — where attacks on American soldiers have risen in recent weeks — were quoted by news services as saying that crowds also pummeled the soldiers' bodies and looted their car.

At a briefing here in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark T. Kimmitt, confirmed the deaths of the two soldiers, from the 101st Airborne Division, but said he would release no details about the incident.

"It is our policy that we do not go into specific details on injuries sustained by soldiers," said General Kimmitt, who is the United States military's deputy director for operations in Iraq. He said there was a continuing investigation into the men's deaths and that he was "not going to get ghoulish about this."

The military official said one aspect of the investigation was why the soldiers were traveling alone and not in a convoy, which the official described as "standard operating procedure" for safety.

Officials also said two soldiers from the First Armored Division were killed and one injured in a traffic accident on Saturday. An M-1 Abrams tank struck their Humvee near Baghdad International Airport.

American authorities here said Sunday that they had suspended civilian flights after a DHL cargo plane was hit by two surface-to-air missiles on Saturday. Dan Senor, a spokesman for the United States provisional authority in Iraq, told reporters here that military flights would continue. The few civilian airlines that operate in Iraq include DHL and Royal Jordanian.

On Sunday, General Kimmitt confirmed that ground personnel saw two missiles hit the DHL A300 Airbus shortly after takeoff at the Baghdad International Airport, a major base for United States soldiers in Iraq. He said the missiles caused "extensive damage to the left wing" but that the plane landed safely. The three crew members were unhurt.

The military also reported that three American contractors were hurt in a bomb blast at the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.

In Mosul on Sunday, a senior Iraqi police official, Col. Abdul-Salam Qanbar, was shot dead as he walked to pray at a mosque with his young son, the military said.

The police chief in Latifiya, just south of Baghdad, was shot to death by attackers who fired on his car, wounding two other officers.

The Iraqi police have been frequent targets of attack: Twin suicide bombings on Saturday in Baquba and Khan Bani Saad, both north of Baghdad, killed at least 11 police officers, along with half a dozen civilians.

[Hannibal]

Aside from the throat cutting did you notice the part about the Airbus taking 2 direct hits from a MANPADs and still able to make it?

I would bet the soldiers were killed from gunshots and some saddam lover did the throat slashing after the fact. We need to get some serious ass kicking going on over there...

[Hannibal]

U.S. Retracts Report of Soldiers' Bodies Being Mutilated

By DEXTER FILKINS

Published: November 24, 2003


AGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 24 — Military officials retracted a report today that two American soldiers had been slashed in their throats in an attack Sunday in the northern city of Mosul.

A military official here, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the two soldiers had died of gunshot wounds to the head and that their bodies had been pulled by Iraqis from their car and robbed of their personal belongings.



The military official said that contrary to some reports, the men had not been beaten by rocks or mutilated in any way.

The victims, both soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, were shot by unidentified gunmen who had stopped in front of the American's car, forcing it to come to a halt. The assailants got out of their car and fired at the Americans through the windshield.

"Their throats were not slit," the military official said. "The cause of death was gunshot wounds to the head."

The statement by the military official today offered some clarity to what appeared to be a gruesome killing reminiscent of a well-known incident involving the deaths of American soldiers in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. That incident, in which an American soldier was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, was seen as one of the principal reasons the United States quit its attempts to bring order to the capital.

The military official said that while an initial military report had said that the men's throats had been cut, further investigation revealed no evidence of such wounds. The military official said that the men had been pulled from the car, presumably to make it easier for Iraqis to rifle through the men's clothing and steal their possessions. The men were robbed of their personal belongings, the official said, including their guns. But they were not dragged through the streets, the official said.

The identities of the men remained undisclosed today pending the notification of their families.

Despite today's statements, important questions remained unanswered about the incident. The main one was why the men were traveling alone through the city streets. Military rules in Mosul and other parts of Iraq generally prohibit troops from traveling outside their bases except in a convoy. The Americans who were killed were traveling in an unarmored sport-utility-vehicle.

"There is no excuse," the military official said.

Another mystery was the initial reports about the men having their throats cut. The official could offer no explanation for that.

The incident in Mosul was the latest in a wave of violence that has hit the city in recent months. In the first months after the war, Mosul, an ethnically mixed city of more than two million people, was something of a showcase for the American occupation. Its large Kurdish and Arab populations mingled peacefully, and the soldiers of the 101st Airborne spent millions of dollars refurbishing the city's public buildings and streets.

The atmosphere began to change in September. Since then, there have been a string of attacks on American forces, prompting the 101st to step up military operations inside the city. Last week, in an incident still under investigation, two Black Hawk helicopters crashed in the city, sending 17 soldiers to their deaths.

Also today, American military police trying to quell a prison riot in Baghdad killed three Iraqis and wounded eight. The riot broke out at the Baghdad Correctional Center when a group of Iraqis began throwing rocks at the guards. A military official said that when the riot began to spread, American military police were given permission to use lethal force.

The riot lasted about 10 minutes, the official said.

The Baghdad Correctional Center used to be known as Abu Ghraib, which had the reputation as one of the grimmest destinations for political prisoners during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

[kruser79]

The Army's question is one of the first ones that occurred to me. Even in a relatively calm place as the Balkans, the two-vehicle minimum is always adhered to, no matter how inconvenient. It's a double-edged sword. You hope that these guys weren't out, knowingly, own their own. But the flip side is that if they were out legitimately, then someone in the chain of command knew they were out on their own. Dammit, I can't see where this sort of incident has any good answer.