Shaffer
04-16-03, 08:19 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq ---- A massive explosion leveled a block of houses in Baghdad on Monday morning, killing and wounding many residents around what military officials say they think was a booby-trapped ammunition cache.
A mother tries to get her children out of the area after a huge explosion from an Iraqi army weapons cache in Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday.
A platoon of U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton who were in the neighborhood giving medical supplies to a nearby hospital, rushed to the scene and helped pull residents from the rubble.
But when told the blast might have been meant for them, the Marines hastily retreated to the safety of their nearby operating base.
Such is the increasingly murky environment Marines find themselves in as they work the gray zone between being assault troops and peacekeepers.
"We're definitely entering that category of asymmetrical threats, of operations other than war," Capt. Matt Reid said, briefing a section of his company ----- Lima, 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment ---- before an aggressive raid on a former Iraqi military command and control bunker Monday.
http://www.nctimes.net/news/2003/20030415/53807.html
A mother tries to get her children out of the area after a huge explosion from an Iraqi army weapons cache in Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday.
A platoon of U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton who were in the neighborhood giving medical supplies to a nearby hospital, rushed to the scene and helped pull residents from the rubble.
But when told the blast might have been meant for them, the Marines hastily retreated to the safety of their nearby operating base.
Such is the increasingly murky environment Marines find themselves in as they work the gray zone between being assault troops and peacekeepers.
"We're definitely entering that category of asymmetrical threats, of operations other than war," Capt. Matt Reid said, briefing a section of his company ----- Lima, 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment ---- before an aggressive raid on a former Iraqi military command and control bunker Monday.
http://www.nctimes.net/news/2003/20030415/53807.html