"This was a new lesson from the resistance"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

LA Times, Nov. 2, 2003
Chopper Shot Down in Iraq, Killing 13 GIs

By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq ? A U.S. Chinook helicopter carrying troops en route home 
for leave was struck by a missile Sunday and crashed west of Baghdad, 
killing 13 soldiers and wounding more than 20, the U.S. command and 
witnesses reported.

It was the deadliest day for American troops in the six-month-old 
occupation of Iraq, and the second-deadliest since the U.S. invasion in 
March that ousted Saddam Hussein.

The Chinook shootdown was a major new blow in an Iraq insurgency that 
escalated in recent days -- a "tough week," in the words of the U.S. 
occupation chief. Other U.S. soldiers were reported killed Sunday in ground 
attacks here and elsewhere in central Iraq.

The attacks came amid threats attributed to Saddam's party of a wave of 
violence against the U.S. occupation, though there was still no sign of the 
rumored "Day of Resistance" allegedly planned for Saturday in Baghdad.

The aircraft was hit at about 9 a.m. and crashed amid cornfields near the 
village of Hasi, about 40 miles southwest of Baghdad and just south of 
Fallujah, a center of Sunni Muslim resistance to the U.S. occupation. The 
U.S. military command said a search was under way for more survivors.

At the scene, villagers proudly showed off blackened pieces of wreckage to 
arriving reporters.

Others celebrated word of the helicopter downing, as well as a fresh attack 
on U.S. soldiers in Fallujah itself, where witnesses said an explosion 
struck one vehicle in a U.S. Army convoy at about 9 a.m. Sunday. They 
claimed four soldiers died, but U.S. military sources said they couldn't 
confirm the report.

"This was a new lesson from the resistance, a lesson to the greedy 
aggressors," one Fallujah resident, who wouldn't give his name, said of the 
helicopter downing. "They'll never be safe until they get out of our 
country," he said of the Americans.

full: http://www.latimes.com/

Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org


~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.