Atleast 13 US Soldiers Dead Today as a result of a helicopter attack

Post-9/11 Era Forum

U.S. helicopter shot down in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. death toll from a downed Chinook helicopter near Fallujah, has risen to 13, military officials said.

The helicopter was shot down by a shoulder-type missile, about 60 kilometers west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, at 8 a.m. Sunday, witnesses told CNN.

It was one of three separate attacks Sunday, which saw at least one other U.S. servicemen killed in a convoy attack in Baghdad at about midnight.

It is the deadliest combat day for the U.S. since March 23, the day 28 American troops died in battle.

Between 32 and 35 people from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division were traveling on the Chinook, which was one of two flying to the Baghdad International Airport from a U.S. base camp. The men were beginning a "R and R" mission -- a short break from war.

CNN's Jane Arraf, who is at the scene, said witnesses saw a shoulder-type missile strike the helicopter just before it crashed into a field in a farming area.

"They (coalition forces) are controlling traffic, with guns at the ready. They are saying it is still a volatile area," she said.

"The area is in the middle of farmland, and it would be extremely easy for somebody to hide here and launch a missile, which is what witnesses are saying."

A second convoy was attacked in Fallujah, about an hour before the Chinook incident, but it is not clear whether any injuries were sustained.

CNN's Matthew Chance said crowds of Iraqis gathered quickly in the "flashpoint" city chanting anti-U.S. slogans.

It is believed the U.S. soldiers in the vehicle were taken away by other members of the convoy.

These 13 deaths -- along with the death of another soldier early Sunday in Baghdad -- brings to 136 the number of U.S. combat deaths since U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to major hostilities May 1.

The attacks came as coalition forces were on alert for a threatened "day of resistance," following a warning from the U.S. Consulate Office in Baghdad.

The consulate said U.S. military patrols, hotels, markets, and non-governmental organizations could be among the sites attacked.

Chance said it was "difficult to pull the incidents together to say with any certainty" whether the incidents were connected and part of the so-called "day of resistance."

"The areas of Fallujah and Baghdad have been the venues for similar attacks, so it is difficult, impossible, to say whether we are seeing greater, more intense, action," he added.

On Saturday, two U.S. soldiers were killed in an explosion near the northern city of Mosul. The soldiers, from the 101st Airborne Division, were killed when their convoy struck an improvised explosive device. Two other soldiers were injured.

On Friday clashes between U.S. troops and Iraqi crowds in Baghdad left 14 Iraqis dead, according to a U.S. military official.

The violence began when two grenades were thrown at a U.S. patrol around the Abu Ghraib market. The American troops returned fire and the Iraqis began firing small arms and throwing rocks, a military official said.

In a bid to boost security and stability, U.S. administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer said the United States is stepping up efforts to hand over more responsibility to Iraqis themselves.

Coalition forces will speed up the training of Iraqi police and military, he said, and the size of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps will be doubled by March.

"We will have over 200,000 Iraqis involved in their own security forces by September next year," Bremer added.

Despite the attacks, the U.S.-led coalition had been able to reopen justice courts, build jails and recruit 50,000 Iraqi police officers.

A coalition military official said 33 attempted attacks are made against U.S. troops every day. Coalition officials blame forces loyal to ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, terrorist groups and other insurgents for the attacks.

Bremer said officials believe Saddam is alive and in Iraq, though there is "no indication" he is behind the attacks.

But he added: "His capture, or killing him, is one of the top priorities."

Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, said opponents of the U.S.-led occupation forces have been altering their tactics -- shifting from targeting coalition forces to targeting other international and institutions that they see as "key to the development of the country."

On Monday, four suicide bombings on three police stations and the headquarters of the International Red Cross left more than 30 people dead.
Other developments

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IMPEACH THE BASTARD

18 ....

As a military veteran I can just imagine this latest blow to the sagging morale of the troops in Iraq. The already worst place in the world has worstened. The rosy scenario spouted by Bush & Co. is sickening. The "road map" for Iraq is in tatters, and can't be pieced together by our so-called "intelligence".It's time to install an Iraqi puppet government and get the hell out. Even the oil ain't worth it.

WASHINGTON — "It is no secret that warding off the American enemy is the top duty after faith and that nothing should take priority over it," said the terrorist leader. "Crusader military forces" of the United States and Britain, he warned, had established a beachhead in the Muslim world to impose a new imperialism on the Middle East and gain control of the region's oil.

The words of an Iraqi resistance leader? No. The words of Osama bin Laden in his "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" in 1996.

The American beachhead Bin Laden was referring to was Saudi Arabia, but his followers, active supporters and sympathizers today view his words as prophetic of the U.S.-led invasion and conquest of
Iraq. We don't know the identities of the terrorists behind the recent wave of attacks in Iraq, but they appear to have a variety of backgrounds — Hussein loyalists, Iraqis seeking to empower various factions, Al Qaeda terrorists and other anti-American forces. But we do know their fundamental metric of success is their ability to attack and terrorize, and that the media can bring news of a terrorist attack to billions of people within a few hours. Terrorists crave the regenerative power of a single, new, dramatic attack that can put them in the spotlight.

In this respect, governments are inevitably only as good as their last failure. No matter how many attacks they prevent, no matter how many people are not killed daily by terrorists, what's remembered is the relatively small number of terrorist attacks that succeed.

There's no question that the United States and other governments have made significant progress in the war against global terrorism in recent months. Our airports and planes are far better protected. Government buildings are surrounded by new barriers and other security measures. Many terrorists are in prison cells or in graves as a result of counter-terrorism work by the United States and its allies. But all that's needed is one new, successful attack.

At the end of World War II, the once-mighty armies of Germany and Japan were broken and simply stopped fighting. But despite the crushing defeat in Afghanistan of Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies, terrorist incidents linked to Al Qaeda occurred in the last two years in places as diverse as Tunisia, Pakistan, Jordan, Indonesia, Kuwait, the Philippines, Yemen, Kenya and now possibly Iraq. The terrorist organization has continued to use suicide bombers — at sea and on land. And commercial aviation has remained a significant Al Qaeda target, as July's warning from the Transportation Security Administration showed.

The war against terrorism thus appears to be in a transitional state. Our counter-terrorism measures are becoming stronger. Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are scrambling to adapt to new, less-congenial operational environments. During this period, we are likely to see increased recruitment of second- and third-generation European Muslims.

Recruitment efforts are already targeting Muslim youth living in the Netherlands who were previously assumed to be thoroughly assimilated. Al Qaeda operatives will seek to embed themselves in, and draw new sources of support from, established overseas communities. Such recruits don't usually come under the scrutiny of local or national law enforcement.

Al Qaeda's main challenge is to promote and ensure its durability as an ideology and concept. It can do this only by staying in the news, by elbowing aside potential terrorist competitors and by launching new attacks that reinforce its relevance to the Muslim world. Violence will continue to be key to these objectives.

In the post-9/11 environment, terrorism's power — to coerce and intimidate, to force changes in social behavior and to influence U.S. policies and spending — has increased enormously. The stakes, accordingly, have grown, as have public fear and expectations.

More and more, the measure of success in the war on terrorism is defined as the ability of intelligence agencies and law enforcement organizations to prevent, preempt or deter attacks. Conversely, the standard of success for the terrorists has become simply the ability to spread death, destruction and fear. Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to attack a single target than to defend an infinite number of potential targets.

Although there is a world of difference between bombing a hotel in Jakarta and attacking the Pentagon and laying the World Trade Center to waste, the impact the terrorists seek is not necessarily dissimilar. Al Qaeda's power — and the appeal of its idea of radical jihad — in the world stems from the extraordinary success of its murderous 9/11 attacks.

All this points to a long, long struggle ahead in the war against terrorism. There will be far more victories than defeats, but no matter how successful we are, someone, somewhere, is probably plotting the next attack.


By Bruce Hoffman. Bruce Hoffman is a terrorism expert with the Rand Corp., a nonprofit research organization.

hello aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Don't bother, noworth, I'm placing you on my 'ignore' list. I'm too busy to read your crap.

lol,

already 4 (maybe the 5th is on-going) reply to my posts till you posted that:

oops, 7th reply

you can't ignore my posts, don't you aaaaaaaahahahahaha

You say something, noworth?

Why do you keep saying: "This user is on your 'ignore list?'"

lol,

seems that you are so idiot that you are unable to use the "IGNORE" facility of the forum ....... too bad

on my side you are on the idiot list: damn, my PC will do a buffer overflow, too much stupidity posted by aaaaaaaaaaaahhh ..... it says ....

switched to ignore list, problem solved, ciao aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh

All that these anti-war/anti-Bush malcontents do is echo to one another is: WHERE'S THE WMD. They sound like that TV commercial from the 70s (or was it the the 80s): WHERE'S THE BEEF? Never you mind that 24 million Iraqis—let alone all of humanity—will benefit from the removal of the murdering dictator and his cancerous influence.

It doesn't matter to them that the U.S. fought, by all legitimate accounts, a LEGAL war. It doesn't matter to them that the U.S. is now persevering—and will continue to persevere—on the war on terrorists (a.k.a. hit-and-run, mass-murdering cowards). No, no! THEIR anti-U.S./anti-war OPINION is the only legitimate one, you see. And each and everyone of them has an OPINION—like each and everyone of them has an ARSEHOLE—with which they try to sh!t on the U.S. Administration. But it's rather a lengthy distance to the White House, gentlemen, especially for those of you attempting a launch from across either ocean—and that is most of you—so try for a high arc and hope that the wind is at your back. But considering the jet-stream, at least you Europeans are left with... well let's just call it "egg" on your faces.

And if buried stockpiles of WMD were found tomorrow do you think these individuals would wipe the egg of their faces and change their tune? GIMME A BREAK! Half of them would claim the WMD were planted by the U.S. and the other half would scramble for a new script to their tragic comedy titled "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Anti-U.S. Forum."

Screw that senile baztard Ronald Reagan too.

Start a war first without the world (UN) support, then find WMD (the direct reason to claim the war) yourself next. This is exact the same like "execute a person first, then find if the person is guilty or not". This is not what so called the most Democracy country in the world is supposed to do.