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thedrifter
04-16-08, 07:14 AM
Iraq bomb kills 2 Marines
Deadly attack in western Anbar announced as airstrikes kill 4 insurgents
The Associated Press
updated 5:28 a.m. ET, Wed., April. 16, 2008

BAGHDAD - Two U.S. Marines have been killed in Iraq's western Anbar province, officials said on Wednesday.

A military statement said the two died Sunday when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. Their identities have not been released pending notification of relatives.

The deaths raise to at least 4,036 the number of U.S. military members who have died since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The statement came as the British military said an airstrike in Basra has killed four gunmen armed with rocket propelled grenades.

British spokesman Maj. Tom Holloway says the group was attacked just after midnight by a warplane. He says four gunmen died when their vehicle was blown up. Another gunman was injured.

The British and U.S. military are using air power to support Iraqi government forces. These are conducting sweeps of Iraq's southern oil capital looking for militants and illegal arms.

Kurdish rebels targeted
Turkish warplanes also hit an area in northern Iraq where a group of Kurdish rebels was trying to infiltrate Turkey, officials said Wednesday.

Warplanes attacked the rebels in the Avasin-Basyan region of northern Iraq, near the Turkish border town of Cukurca, the Turkish military said.

The military also reported clashes in Turkey's Diyarbakir and Sirnak provinces, and said one rebel was killed.

In February, the Turkish military staged a ground incursion against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, and it has periodically bombed and shelled suspected rebel positions across the border in past months.

The United States lists the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party as a terrorist group and is sharing military intelligence about the rebels with Turkey.

Kurdish guerrillas seek autonomy for Kurds in southeast Turkey and have been fighting since 1984.

Ellie

thedrifter
04-16-08, 07:15 AM
April 16, 2008


Two Wisconsin Marines killed, one injured Monday in Iraq

The Associated Press

MILWAUKEE — Two Wisconsin Marines were killed and a third wounded in Iraq on Monday. All three belonged to Milwaukee-based Fox Company.

Staff Sgt. Cliff Turley, public affairs officer for the Marine Reserve unit, said a single roadside bomb killed 23-year-old Cpl. Richard Nelson of Kenosha and 29-year-old Lance Cpl. Dean Opicka, a Casco native and graduate of Carroll College in Waukesha.

He said the explosion also wounded 21-year-old Lance Cpl. David Doyle of Racine, but Doyle was expected to stay in Iraq and return to duty.

The deaths were the first during Fox Company's second tour in Iraq. Five members were killed during a deployment in 2004-05.

Nelson's mother, Susan Nelson, said she was informed that her son was killed by an improvised bomb in Anbar province, and military officials offered no other details.

Nelson loved to hunt and fish and watch Green Bay Packers games, she said. He idolized Packers quarterback Brett Favre and even called home the day Favre retired last month.

"He told me, 'Mom, tell me the news isn't true. Tell me Brett Favre hasn't retired.' He wanted to hold onto the memories he left."

He and his wife, Kristen, planned to start their own family when he got home, Susan Nelson said. He also planned to go to college and become an elementary school teacher.

"He just loved kids," she said.

The last time they'd seen him in person was Christmas, when the whole family was together, she said. Her husband, Lennie, a Vietnam veteran, was taking the news of his son's death "terrible," she said.

Opicka graduated from Luxemburg-Casco High School in 1997 and is the third graduate of the school to die in the Iraq war. He played quarterback for the football team and point guard for the basketball team.

At Carroll College, he played baseball and graduated in May 2002 with a double major in psychology and history, said college spokeswoman Claire Beglinger.

He later returned to Carroll, completing a teaching certification in 2005, and taught in the Milwaukee area.

Steve Okoniewski, principal at Luxemburg-Casco, said he met with Opicka before his deployment and the two discussed the possibility of his teaching at his old high school.

"He got called up and knew he wouldn't be back until August," Okoniewski said. "I would have loved to have had him back. Then his dad told me that he wouldn't be back until November."

Eighty-eight members of the military from Wisconsin have died in the Iraq war.

Ellie