WAR: A Busy Sunday in Iraq; Insurgents Shoot Down U.S. Helicopter West of Baghdad

In the relative peace normally found on a Sunday morning, Iraq seems to be quite busy today. This morning a U.S Helicopter was shot down west of Baghdad killing 2 crew members. In Fallujah, where a cease-fire has been called, gunfight broke out wounding two more Americans, but the fighting is at the quietest it has been all week. The main highway into Baghdad has been shut down by U.S forces and helicoptors are flying about the city. The fate of the various kidnapping victims are still unknown.

Insurgents Shoot Down U.S. Helicopter West of Baghdad; Gunbattle Interrupts Cease-Fire in Fallujah
Heavy firing was heard, and tanks and Humvees moved into the area near the suburb of Abu Ghraib, where masked gunmen have wreaked havoc for the past three days, attacking fuel convoys and blowing up tanker trucks. Insurgents kidnapped an American civilian and killed a U.S. soldier in the area Friday.

The captors of Thomas Hammil, a Mississippi native who works for a U.S. contractor in Iraq, threatened to kill and burn him unless U.S. troops end their assault on Fallujah, west of Baghdad, by 6 a.m. Sunday. The deadline passed with no word on Hammil's fate.

Video footage aired on Arabic television Sunday showed the bodies of two dead Westerners - possibly a pair of Americans seen by APTN cameramen on Friday being dragged out of a car on the Abu Ghraib highway, in a different incident from Hammil's kidnapping.

In southern Iraq, some 1.5 million Shiite pilgrims marked one of their holiest religious days, al-Arbaeen. In the city of Karbala, hundreds of Shiite militiamen - but no police - patrolled the street preparing for a possible U.S. assault against rebellious followers of al-Sadr.

U.S. commanders have suggested they will move against al-Sadr, whose militia has control of Karbala and two other cities, after the al-Arbaeen ceremonies, which mark the end of a 40-day mourning period for a 7th-century martyred Shiite saint.

In southern Iraq, some 1.5 million Shiite pilgrims marked one of their holiest religious days, al-Arbaeen. In the city of Karbala, hundreds of Shiite militiamen - but no police - patrolled the street preparing for a possible U.S. assault against rebellious followers of al-Sadr.

U.S. commanders have suggested they will move against al-Sadr, whose militia has control of Karbala and two other cities, after the al-Arbaeen ceremonies, which mark the end of a 40-day mourning period for a 7th-century martyred Shiite saint.





[Edited on 4-11-2004 by worldwatcher]