Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Bridge blast targets U.S. troops

A U.S. force and a private security group join hands to rescue soldiers, three of whom died, officials said.

By TIMES WIRES
Published June 11, 2007

MAHMOUDIYA, Iraq - With a thunderous rumble and cloud of dust and smoke, an apparent suicide vehicle bomb brought down a section of highway bridge south of Baghdad on Sunday as U.S. soldiers guarded the crossing.

The explosion apparently killed three U.S. soldiers who were nearby, U.S. and Iraqi security officials said. There were conflicting reports about whether the soldiers, some of whom reportedly were trapped in the debris, were on the overpass or under it when the blast occurred.

An Iraqi civilian also was injured, said Donald Campbell, of the private security Armor Group International, who helped in the rescue. Campbell, 40, of Inverness, Scotland, and others in a passing Armor Group convoy worked with a U.S. Army quick reaction force for about 45 minutes to pull trapped men from the rubble. U.S. armored vehicles provided cover fire from their cannons after the bombing.

The blast dropped one of two sections of the "Checkpoint 20" bridge crossing over the north-south expressway, six miles east of Mahmoudiya. It appeared that a suicide driver stopped and detonated his vehicle beside a support pillar, said Lt. Col. Garry Bush, an Army munitions officer who was in the convoy, which also carried an Associated Press reporter and photographer and arrived two minutes after the blast.

A U.S. Army checkpoint and a tent structure, apparently a rest area, fell into the shattered concrete. The crossing was believed to have been closed to all but military traffic at the time.

"When that size blast went off, everyone was in shock, " said one of the first atop the rubble, Jackie Smith, 53, of Olathe, Kan., a former lieutenant colonel now working as a civilian Army munitions expert.

He said he saw what he believed was the engine block of a truck - apparently what remained of the suicide vehicle.

With the Army's quick reaction force, Armor Group struggled to lift concrete shards off the men, pinned along the slope of what was once a roadway. At one point, a Bradley armored vehicle with a tow chain pulled a slab off a pinned victim.

Then a shout went up, "Morphine! Morphine!" and a T-shirt-clad Briton administered painkiller to the freed man. "Another poor fellow looked crushed beneath a concrete slab, " Campbell said.

Traffic was delayed for over an hour until a medevac helicopter landed to take aboard the wounded, then resumed under the remaining section of the bridge.

Information from the Associated Press and the Washington Post was used in this report.

Court sets date for verdict

The Iraqi court trying Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid and other former regime officials for their roles in a 1980s military campaign against the Kurds that killed up to 180, 000 people said Sunday it would issue a verdict on June 24.

U.S. strike against Iran urged

Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's involvement in Iraq. Lieberman said much of the action could probably be done by air, adding, "I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran."

15 killed in suicide bombing

A suicide truck bomber struck an Iraqi police agency in Tikrit in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 15 people, police said.

Other attacks

Helicopter fires on crowd: A U.S. helicopter fired flares on a crowd in eastern Baghdad after clashes between American troops and Shiite militia that left five people dead.

Troops killed: In addition to the three U.S. troops killed in the bridge blast, the military said one soldier was killed Sunday in Baghdad and one Saturday in Diyala province.

[Last modified June 11, 2007, 01:11:11]