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Nine US troops killed in iraq { January 7 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54035-2005Jan6.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54035-2005Jan6.html
Nine U.S. Troops Are Killed in Iraq
Martial Law Extended Through Election
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 7, 2005; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Jan. 7 -- Seven U.S. soldiers were killed when a massive roadside bomb exploded under an armored vehicle in Baghdad and two Marines were killed in Anbar province on Thursday, the military said. It was the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Iraq since a suicide bomber struck a mess hall Dec. 21.
The roadside bomb exploded beneath a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, killing everyone inside the heavily armored troop carrier. The attack came in northwest Baghdad, a section of the capital that includes a Sunni Muslim neighborhood with a substantial presence of insurgents.
No details were released on the deaths of the Marines, announced separately from Anbar, which includes such hot spots as Fallujah and Ramadi.
The spike in U.S. deaths came on a day that Iraq's interim government announced it was extending martial law through Jan. 30, the date set for nationwide elections meant to produce a parliament that will oversee the drafting of a constitution. Insurgent groups, operating in Sunni areas, have threatened to derail the election.
The commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, said that security was poor in four of Iraq's 18 provinces but that postponing the election posed greater dangers. "I think there is a greater chance of civil war with a delay than without one," Metz said at a news conference in Baghdad.
Metz said the provinces of Anbar, Baghdad, Salahadin and Nineveh -- among the country's most heavily populated -- were dangerous enough to deter some Iraqis from voting.
He said Iraqi security forces were improving and good enough to provide close-in security at polling places, with U.S. forces standing by out of sight. But he acknowledged that terrorist attacks on polling places may succeed, given the more than 6,000 voting stations nationwide.
"I can't guarantee that every person in Iraq that wants to vote goes to a polling booth and can do that safely," Metz said. "We're going to do everything possible to create that condition for them, but we are fighting an enemy who cares less who he kills, when he kills and how he kills."
Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi also warned that insurgent attacks were likely to further intensify, as he extended the two-month-old state of emergency for another 30 days. The law gives his government broad powers to impose curfews and conduct arrests.
"Since terrorist gangs continue their activities to prevent the creation of a broad representative government and try to impede peaceful political participation of all Iraqis, we have decided to extend the state of emergency in all areas of Iraq except the region of Kurdistan for 30 days," Allawi said in a statement. Kurdistan is defined by three ethnic Kurdish provinces in northeastern Iraq where security has long been solid.
In recent weeks, insurgents have mounted an often gruesome campaign intended to intimidate voters and punish Iraqis who work with the interim government, especially security forces. On Thursday police in northern Iraq said they had found the bodies of 18 Iraqis who had been abducted on Dec. 8 while traveling from Baghdad to work at a U.S. base west of Mosul. According to news services, the police identified the victims as Shiite Muslims, all males between the ages of 14 and 20, and said each had his hands tied behind his back and had been shot in the head.
In the south, police in Basra found two charred and beheaded bodies in a house that had been used by election officials, the Reuters news agency reported.
Iraqi police also said a French journalist had been missing since Wednesday and may have been kidnapped. The French newspaper Liberation said the journalist, Florence Aubenas, had been working for the paper in Iraq since December.
Aubenas, 43, and her interpreter, Hussein Hanoun Saadi, "haven't been seen since they left their hotel in Baghdad Wednesday morning," Liberation said on its Web site.
The military offered no details of the roadside bombing that killed seven, but Newsday reported that the dead were with the 69th Infantry Regiment, a National Guard outfit from New York state. The Long Island-based newspaper quoted military officials as saying the bomb caused the armored vehicle to flip over and catch fire.
Roadside bombs emerged early in the Iraq war as a particularly lethal weapon for insurgents, even against a U.S. force wreathed in armor. Pentagon statistics show that 80 percent of American service members killed in Iraq suffered blast injuries, which also could include mortars and other artillery.
A plurality of fatal injuries were wounds to the head. Combat surgeons have observed that roadside bombs, by detonating upward, send shrapnel and gravel into the brain through the face and eyes.
The devastating attack in northwest Baghdad came the day after Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the 1st Cavalry Division commander in charge of Baghdad, reported that troops in the capital were now finding 50 percent of the roadside bombs planted in the division's area of operations. Those that go undetected appear to be killing more troops, however. On Tuesday, an "improvised explosive device" killed three soldiers in a single incident in Baghdad.
The flurry of fatal attacks on U.S. forces ended what Metz had predicted would be a temporary lull in the number of assaults by insurgents. On Thursday, before the roadside bomb killed seven, Metz said, "I'm seeing the number of attacks decrease, and I'm seeing the quality of the attacks decrease."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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