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Powell arrives in Baghdad as another US soldier is killed
Baghdad, Sept 14: US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Baghdad today but was faced with a beleaguered occupation force who fell prey to another fatal attack which killed one us soldier in the flashpoint town of Fallujah.
Baghdad, Sept 14: US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Baghdad today but was faced with a beleaguered occupation force who fell prey to another fatal attack which killed one us soldier in the flashpoint town of
Fallujah.
Powell arrived in the war-torn country via Kuwait from Geneva where emergency UN talks failed to resolve core issues over Iraq's future.
Two days after a "friendly fire" incident cost the lives of nine Iraqi security personnel and a Jordanian guard, us forces suffered another deadly assault in Fallujah when their convoy was attacked with an "improvised explosive device", a US military spokeswoman said.
Witnesses at the scene said a helicopter attempted to land to evacuate the wounded to a nearby hospital after the blast, but was turned back after it was targeted by a rocket. The blast followed the funeral yesterday of the nine Iraqi security men in a clash involving US forces, who apologised for the shootout, but which anti-American forces in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim bastion, swore to avenge.
A group of masked men, describing themselves as anti-US resistance forces spoke briefly to reporters, reciting verses from the Koran before issuing a chilling warning. "We will conduct an operation tonight to avenge the martyrs," one said.
Powell, the highest-ranking Washington official to visit Iraq since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in April and the first US Secretary of State here in half a century, was greeted by senior American military officers on the tarmac of Baghdad Airport. Bureau Report
Two days after a "friendly fire" incident cost the lives of nine Iraqi security personnel and a Jordanian guard, us forces suffered another deadly assault in Fallujah when their convoy was attacked with an "improvised explosive device", a US military spokeswoman said.
Witnesses at the scene said a helicopter attempted to land to evacuate the wounded to a nearby hospital after the blast, but was turned back after it was targeted by a rocket. The blast followed the funeral yesterday of the nine Iraqi security men in a clash involving US forces, who apologised for the shootout, but which anti-American forces in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim bastion, swore to avenge.
A group of masked men, describing themselves as anti-US resistance forces spoke briefly to reporters, reciting verses from the Koran before issuing a chilling warning. "We will conduct an operation tonight to avenge the martyrs," one said.
Powell, the highest-ranking Washington official to visit Iraq since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in April and the first US Secretary of State here in half a century, was greeted by senior American military officers on the tarmac of Baghdad Airport. Bureau Report