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First gi slain since hussein capture { December 19 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/international/middleeast/19IRAQ.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/international/middleeast/19IRAQ.html
December 19, 2003
COMBAT
G.I. Slain in Ambush; First Since Hussein Capture
By IAN FISHER
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 18 — An American soldier was shot to death in an ambush in Baghdad on Wednesday night, the military said on Thursday. He was the first soldier to be killed by hostile fire since Saddam Hussein was captured last weekend.
A second soldier and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded in the attack on a patrol, in the Karkh neighborhood, near the main American headquarters in downtown Baghdad. The soldier was the 199th killed in combat since President Bush declared major hostilities over on May 1.
But Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the military here, noted cautiously that fatal attacks on American soldiers were down significantly in December, compared with November, the deadliest month by far for soldiers here. A military Web site reports 11 American soldiers killed so far this month, compared with 81 in November, almost half of those in helicopter crashes caused by enemy fire.
But he said attacks on Iraqis, far less protected than the soldiers, continued to increase. In the last week alone, he said, there have been 21 attacks on Iraqi police officers or civilians, whereas the number several months ago was "one or two every other day."
Since Sunday, about 25 Iraqi police officers have been killed in suicide attacks on police stations.
In Samarra, a city north of Baghdad considered a center for attacks in Iraq, the army continued to conduct raids aimed at breaking up cells of insurgents and the people who finance them. In the last two days, the military said, it has arrested 86 people, confiscated weapons and what General Kimmitt described as "large amounts" of explosives and ammunition.
During the raid in Samarra on Thursday, American troops killed two people, a military spokesman said.
In Baghdad on Wednesday night, Muhanad al-Hakim, a politician from a prominent Shiite family, was killed as he left his house, in an attack his colleagues said was the work of supporters of Mr. Hussein.
Mr. Hakim, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was a cousin of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a member of the Governing Council. The brother of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, one of the nation's top Shiite clerics, was killed in a car bombing in August in Najaf.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
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