Insurgents inflict 'black day' on US forces in Iraq

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Insurgents inflict 'black day' on US forces in Iraq

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Insurgents adopting new tactics have inflicted another "black day" on US forces in Iraq on Tuesday, with two suicide bombings and a helicopter crash suspected to be a result of hostile fire injuring at least 60 soldiers.

The day started with a truck packed with explosives trying to rush through the gate of a US military base in Tal Afar, 50 km west of the northern major city of Mosul.

Soldiers on the ground opened fire and stopped the car before it detonated outside the compound. Fifty-eight 101st Airborne Division soldiers were wounded as a result.

The wounded soldiers were treated and none of the injuries were life-threatening, said a military spokesman.

While no structural damage was caused to the military building, some windows were broken and a nearby Iraq school was partly damaged by the impact of the blast.

The pre-dawn assault was followed by another suicide bombing attempt at a US base northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon. The soldiers shot at a man who was said to be walking suspiciously toward the gate of the military compound. The man thenblew himself up, slightly injuring two soldiers.

The pair of strikes were the first suicide attacks targeting US military presence in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared the major fighting over on May 1.

At about 2:30 p.m. (1130 GMT), a OH-58 Delta Kiowa reconnaissance helicopter from the 82nd Airborne made an "emergency landing" near the restive town of Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, due to unconfirmed reasons, said a spokesman.

He said the two crew members suffered minimal injuries and walked away after the controlled landing, which conflicted with accounts given by eye witnesses and television reports.

Khalef Allawi, driver of a shovel, said he heard an explosion and saw the aircraft catch fire before it went down in the grassfield on east side of the Euphrates River.

The mid-aged man said he was working in the shovel at the time of crash, the site of which was no more than 20 meters in distance in front of him.

One of the two soldiers was seen burned while the other hid in the grass after the landing, Allawi told Xinhua. But he couldn't tell if the helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as a young man beside him claimed.

A US quick response team cordoned off the area, several kilometers south of the Fallujah city, and threatened to fire if journalists attempted to approach the site less than three hours after the incident.

Allawi, who wanted to fetch his shovel that he left at the scene before he went away to avoid trouble, was forbidden to cross the river, as was the case for a number of other local residents.

While no soldiers were killed on Tuesday, citizens in Fallujahhailed the day as another "black day" for the US forces.

"I am so happy to hear about the attacks and I wish all the American planes were shot down so that they could leave our country," said a policeman who preferred to be identified as "a normal policeman in Fallujah."

Late Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted at a Pentagon briefing that "the terrorists are adjusting their tactics," and the US forces have to adjust the tactics to counter the insurgency.

"It will be a process that we will go on for a period and it'll end favorably," he insisted.

He made the remarks as a reply to a question raised by a journalist concerning the fact that while US officials said anti-US attacks were less they appeared more effective.

Iraqi observers said the resistance, at a time when the US military began to conduct aggressive counter-insurgency operations, seemed aiming at inflicting large casualties on the troops in single attacks.

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