Attack on US base in Iraq kills more than 20

Agence France Presse — English
December 21, 2004 Tuesday 6:03 PM GMT

BAGHDAD Dec 21 — More than 20 people were killed in a rocket attack
Tuesday that turned a dining hall at a US base in the Iraqi city of
Mosul into a fireball, one of the deadliest strikes against US-led
forces in the country.

The attack, claimed by Al-Qaeda linked militants, was swiftly condemned
by US President George W. Bush who said it was aimed at derailing
the transition to democracy in Iraq.

“More than 20 have been killed and more than 60 wounded,” said
Brigadier General Carter Ham, the US-led coalition commander for the
Mosul area.

“The killed include US military personnel, US contractors, foreign
national contractors and Iraqi army,” he said. “It is indeed a very,
very sad day.”

An embedded reporter from the Richmond-Times Dispatch described the
scene of carnage at the Mosul base as soldiers sat down for lunch
and were suddenly hammered in a rocket attack.

“The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out
of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and shrapnel
sprayed into the men,” journalist Jeremy Redmon reported.

“Amid the screaming and thick smoke that followed, quick-thinking
soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded
on them and gently carried them into the parking lot. ‘Medic! Medic!.
soldiers shouted.”

The attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda linked Ansar al-Sunna, which
broke away from another radical group called Ansar al-Islam, both
of which are believed to have links with Iraq’s most wanted man Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi.

“One of the mujahedeen of the Army of Ansar al-Sunna carried out
a martyrdom-seeking (suicide) operation in a restaurant of the
infidel occupation forces at the Ghazlani camp in Mosul,” said the
website statement from the group, whose authenticity could not be
independently confirmed.

Bush condemned the attack and mourned the loss of life, saying it
believes it shows the desperation of insurgent forces, White House
spokesman Scott McClellan said.

“The terrorists and Saddam loyalists are desperately seeking to
derail the transition to democracy and freedom in Iraq,” he said.
“They will be defeated.”

Iraq’s intelligence chief Mohammed Abdullah al-Shahwani said in October
that Mosul has been turned into a major base for militants linked to
Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant who has a 25 million dollar price
on his head.

Mosul, 370 kilometres (250 miles) north of Baghdad, was once considered
a success story of the defunct US occupation in Iraq, but has been
transformed into a battleground between insurgents and US forces.

The city, home to Islamists and staunch loyalists of the ousted Baath
party regime, was the site of almost daily assassination attempts on
suspected US collaborators before the city boiled over in violence
last month.

On June 24, insurgents mounted a one-day street battle against US
forces and set off five car bombs, killing more than 50 people,
in a prelude to November’s fierce uprising by insurgents.

The US military has been conducting operations in Mosul, Iraq’s
third largest city, since coordinated attacks by insurgents on
police stations prompted most of the local police force to quit on
November 11.

Around 80 bodies have been found in and around Mosul since the
beginning of December, most of which authorities say belong to security
forces executed by insurgents.

Christian churches in the city have also come under attack.

Mosul, whose name in Arabic means the link, is one of the most
ethnically diverse cities in Iraq with Arabs, Syriac people, Armenians,
Kurds, Turkmen, Jews, Christians, Muslims and Yazedis all calling
the city home.

Sunni Muslims in Mosul, together with the minority Turkmen community,
fear Kurdish calls for an expanded autonomous region in districts
immediately bordering the northern metropolis, a city of about 1.5
million people.