Black Hawk down near Tikrit, Iraq
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  1. #1

    Post Black Hawk down near Tikrit, Iraq

    U.S. copter shot down near Tikrit
    At least five U.S. soldiers injured in apparent RPG attack






    TIKRIT, Iraq, Oct. 25 — A U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter was shot down Saturday by ground fire near Tikrit, a center of Iraq’s anti-U.S. insurgency, U.S. officials said. The U.S. command in Baghdad said five soldiers were injured.



    THE DOWNING, apparently by a rocket-propelled grenade, raised concerns that insurgents’ attacks on U.S. soldiers were getting more sophisticated even as they grow more frequent. The number of attacks on American troops in Iraq has been inching up to 26 a day recently.

    Two helicopters were flying when the second one in the formation was hit by a projectile, believed to be a RPG, witnesses said. An AP reporter at a U.S. base several hundred yards away saw the stricken aircraft spin out of control in the air then fall to the ground.

    The downed craft could later be seen, engulfed in flames and lying amid brush in a field as a plume of thick black smoke rose into the sky. The second copter hovered overhead. An injured person was seen being removed from the site on a stretcher.
    It was the second time a U.S. helicopter has been downed by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1. The last copter to be shot down was in June.

    “A helicopter did go down,” Capt. Jefferson Wolfe, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, said. “We can confirm it. It was a Black Hawk. We are investigating.”


    In Baghdad, the U.S. military command said the five people on board were injured but were “safely evacuated.” The command did not say why the helicopter went down but added that after it crashed it received ground fire. Black Hawks ordinarily have a crew of three and can carry an additional 11 passengers.
    U.S. officials have been warning that thousands of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles remain unaccounted for after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime and pose a threat to U.S. military aircraft. RPGs, also fired with a shoulder device, are a weapon frequently used by insurgents for ambushes on American forces.

    Tikrit, the hometown of ousted leader Saddam Hussein, lies in the heart of the “Sunni Triangle,” the region of central Iraq north of Baghdad that has seen multiple attacks every day against U.S. forces. The region is where Saddam drew his strongest support, and his loyalists are now believed to be leading resistance to the U.S.-led occupation.

    CURFEW TO BE LIFTED
    Despite violence in Iraq, coalition authorities on Saturday announced plans to lift the curfew in Baghdad and reopen a major bridge in the capital to ease conditions for Iraqis ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which likely begins Sunday.
    Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, on a three-day tour of Iraq, was in Tikrit earlier Saturday visiting the main U.S. garrison there. He left the city hours before the helicopter was shot down and was in the northern city of Kirkuk, U.S. officials said.



    Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the war, traveled to Tikrit to review security on a day when it seemed to get worse. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reports.



    On June 12, a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter was shot down by hostile fire in western Iraq. The craft’s two crewmembers were rescued unhurt. In May, two helicopters crashed in accidents that killed eight servicemembers, including a Marine who drowned trying to save comrades whose chopper crashed into a canal.
    Wolfowitz said he was hopeful that American troops would get more money to train Iraqis to assume a greater role in security as they fight resistance forces.
    “These young Iraqis are stepping forward to fight for their country along with us,” Wolfowitz told reporters at the garrison in Tikrit. “It is a wonderful success story that speaks volumes.”


  2. #2
    Tikrit is a known as Saddam home town...
    They need to do house to house checks...and get rid of anybody that are Saddam's sympathizers.......


    Sempers,

    Roger


  3. #3
    For one thing they should have let the Marines Clean house before pulling them out IRaQ we have lost more after the war that at the start of the war


  4. #4
    Registered User Free Member
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    I agree. My fiance' was there for only 6 months. He is with the 5th Marines, and is currently stationed out in California. Even though I was grateful to have him home so soon, I think that they should have kept them there longer. Because now they are saying that he might have to go back over there.

    SemperFiGirl79


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