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Soldier guarding gas station killed in iraq { December 8 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45638-2003Dec8.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45638-2003Dec8.html
U.S. Solider Killed in Iraq While Guarding Gas Station
Sunday, Roadside Bomb Kills 1 Solider, Wounds 2
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 8, 2003; 10:55 AM
BAGHDAD--A U.S. soldier guarding a gas station was killed Monday when insurgents opened fire from passing vehicles, the Army announced.
The killing occurred in the northern city of Mosul, according to Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a military spokesman, who called the incident a "drive-by shooting." Kimmitt said four assailants fired from about 50 yards away.
Sunday, also in Mosul, Iraqi insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as a U.S. military patrol was passing through, killing one soldier and wounding two others, U.S. military officials said.
The midday strike, which demolished a Humvee in the heart of the city, came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq predicted that attacks would escalate in the coming months.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters he expected guerrillas to step up attacks ahead of the planned handover of power from the U.S. occupation authorities to a transitional Iraqi government. That transfer was set for June 30 under an accelerated schedule that U.S. officials and Iraqi leaders worked out last month.
"We expect to see an increase in violence as we move forward toward sovereignty here at the end of June," Sanchez told reporters in Baghdad. "By the time we hand over sovereignty back to the Iraqi people, these forces will have to conduct some kind of operations against the economic and political sector primarily, while maintaining pressure on the military, if they are to derail the process."
Sanchez also said that U.S. forces were preparing for the intensified conflict and would continue their offensive against loyalists to former president Saddam Hussein so that the transfer of power could go ahead. Sanchez noted that aggressive U.S. tactics had already cut the rate of attacks against U.S. and allied forces to fewer than 20 a day from more than double that number in early November.
"The only way you win in combat is to stay on the offensive. We will continue to do that," he said. "It will be an offensive that is focused, that's based on intelligence, that is done in coordination with the Iraqi people and that is done in coordination with the Iraqi security forces."
Sanchez said that in the coming months, U.S. troops would increasingly rely on Iraqi fighters to press the campaign against the guerrillas. He said he expected to have nearly 40,000 members of an Iraqi civil defense corps in place by April. That corps now includes about 12,500 members. Separately, about 40,000 Iraqi army soldiers in three motorized divisions will be trained and deployed by September, he said.
Sanchez also appealed to the Iraqi public to help in the hunt for Hussein, acknowledging that the pursuit of the country's most-wanted man is making little progress.
"In terms of the search for Saddam, the needle in the haystack, clearly, we haven't found the right haystack," Sanchez said. "We're all focused on trying to find this needle out there. By God, it's a hard problem and . . . the Iraqi people have to help us."
Though finding Hussein would not immediately quiet the insurgency, Sanchez said, the capture or demise of the former president would send a powerful message to Iraqis that he would not be returning to power.
Washington Post staff writer Fred Barbash contributed to this report from Washington.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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