US Casualties Mount ahead of Anniversary

  • Author: Al-Jazeera (summarized)
  • Publish date:18/03/2004
  • Section:WORLD HEADLINES
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Two US soldiers were killed on Thursday morning and six others wounded near Baghdad as Iraqi rescuers completed the task of digging up the dead from a devastating car bomb. A US marine was also killed while three others were wounded in western Iraq, according to military officials. No more details were immediately available. The US army said of Wednesday night's car bomb attack, which devastated the small Mount Lebanon hotel and neighbouring residential buildings, that it bore the hallmark of the Ansar al-Islam group or of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian accused by Washington of working for al-Qaida. Rescuers, some using their bare hands, worked into the early hours of Thursday trying to find people trapped under the smouldering ruins. Locals helped carry away bodies torn apart by the blast. Twenty seven people were initially reported to have died in the explosion but US officials later revised the toll to 17 with 45 others injured. However, the Iraqi Interior Minister said the blast killed six. "So far it looks like a car bomb. The number of casualties is six dead, one of them British and five of them Iraqi," Nuri Badran told reporters. By first light, smoke was still rising from a smouldering house, its front wall ripped off in the explosion. On the upper storey, a picture still hung on the wall, a mattress and carpet lying on the floor of what used to be somebody's bedroom. In another attack on Wednesday, the US army said, mortars fired on a US base near Baghdad killed one American soldier and wounded seven. **Bush campaign interrupted*** The car bomb attack marred a White House campaign to stress the progress made in Iraq a year since the war began, ahead of the 20 March anniversary of the US-led invasion. "We will meet this test with strength and resolve. Democracy is taking root in Iraq and there is no turning back," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "This is a time of testing. We will continue to stay to finish the job for the Iraqi people." Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry stepped up his criticism of President George Bush, charging that US troops were bogged down in Iraq with no end in sight. Vice President Dick Cheney defended Bush and attacked Kerry in a speech in California. "American leaders, above all the commander in chief, must be confident in our nation's cause, and unwavering until the danger to our people is fully and finally removed," he said. US cable TV networks covered Cheney's speech but split their screens for live coverage of the carnage in Baghdad. **PHOTO CAPTION*** U.S. Army troops attend the scene after an explosion at the Mount Lebanon Hotel in central Baghdad March 17, 2004. (REUTERS/Ammar Awad)

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