Irak

[~Crazy Horse]

Wer solche Freunde hat braucht keine Feinde..

U.S. troops kill 2 Iraqi policemen by mistake
Saturday, January 10, 2004 Posted: 1404 GMT (10:04 PM HKT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Two Iraqi policemen were killed Friday by U.S. soldiers after the men failed to identify themselves when the soldiers responded to a domestic dispute near Kirkuk, an Army spokesman said Saturday.

Capt. Jefferson Wolfe said soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade got a report that two families were fighting. When they arrived, the soldiers found two men firing weapons, Wolfe said.

When the men refused to identify themselves, the U.S. soldiers fired warning shots, then shot at them, wounding one man and killing the other, the spokesman said. The wounded man died at a hospital.

"It was an unfortunate incident," said Master Sgt. Robert Cargie of the 4th Infantry Division. "They refused to heed warning shots."

He said the overcoats the men were wearing didn't identify that they were police.

Members of the new Iraqi police work with the U.S.-led coalition and have been attacked for their collaboration. Several police station blasts have killed dozens of officers. In December, an Iraqi police station was bombed, killing 20 people and wounding 32 others.

In other Iraqi developments, Wolfe said the military will investigate a report that U.S. forces near Tikrit fired a machine gun on a taxi last week, killing four Iraqi civilians, including a 7-year-old boy, and wounding the driver.

Four killed in bombing of mosque
Friday, a man on an explosives-packed bicycle blew himself up in front of a mosque during prayers in the eastern Iraqi town of Ba'qubah, killing four people and wounding dozens, U.S.-led coalition officials said.

A 4th Infantry Division officer said a homemade bomb was inside a propane tank strapped to the back of the bike. The bomber was at a gate shouting to be let in to the Shiite Muslim mosque, but was turned away, the officer said. The man then detonated the explosive, killing four others, the officer said. He said 36 people were wounded, with four in serious condition at a hospital. He said no coalition member was hurt.

News videotape showed a burning car, injured people and distraught, panic-stricken bystanders.

"As I was sitting on the television car filming the Friday prayers in front of the Sadeq mosque," a local journalist said, "a car -- I think, a taxi -- exploded, and I was hit by broken glass of windows."

Ba'qubah is a predominately Sunni Muslim town about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Baghdad -- a region where opposition to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq runs high.

It was unclear if Friday's blast reflects religious tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but there have been other bombings near religious sites in recent months.

Last month, a bomb went off at a Sunni mosque in Baghdad, and it was blamed on Shiites. In November, a bomb detonated outside a Shiite shrine in Karbala in central Iraq. Three people were killed in those blasts. In August, a car bomb killed at least 83 people at the Imam Ali Mosque in the south-central town of Najaf. Among the fatalities was a prominent Shiite cleric.

Shiites make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population and suffered under the rule of Saddam, who is a Sunni.

Other developments
• Also Friday, insurgents staged an attack on a hotel in central Baghdad, according to security guards. The guards said four men jumped out of two cars at about 6 a.m. Two of the men fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Bourj al-Hayat Hotel, the guards said. The others exchanged machine-gun fire with the guards. Two of the rocket-propelled grenades struck the hotel's fourth floor. No casualties were reported. Many of Baghdad's downtown hotels house Western expatriates working with reconstruction firms and security companies.

• The U.S. Army launched an investigation Friday to determine whether an attack or mechanical problems brought down a Black Hawk helicopter near Fallujah. The UH-60 transport chopper was on a medical evacuation mission when it crashed around 2:20 p.m. (6:20 a.m. ET) Thursday, military officials said. It was the latest of several fatal chopper crashes and the third in Fallujah since November. The city is west of Baghdad in a region known as the "Sunni Triangle," a hotbed of anti-U.S. activity. Investigators also are looking into an apparent attack Thursday on a C-5 cargo plane that had to limp back to Baghdad International Airport when one of its engines exploded shortly after takeoff.

• About 300 members of the 4th Infantry Division fanned across Tikrit, raiding homes and businesses overnight, a military spokesman said Friday. A 4th Infantry public affairs officer said 12 suspected members of the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary forces were captured without incident in the north-central city. In other raids in northern Iraq, six suspected insurgents were detained. All are believed to have taken part in anti-U.S. activities, the coalition said.

...unterdessen wurden im Nordirak ebenfalls 4 Polizisten erschossen.