Explosion rocks Baghdad's Sadr City (US Helicopter fires missle)

[Cooley Hurd]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2006/02/02/1422601-ap.html

BAGHDAD (AP) - A loud explosion rocked eastern Baghdad's Sadr City on Thursday, killing one woman, and residents blamed a U.S. air strike. The U.S. military had no immediate details.

Residents in the heavily Shiite neighbourhood said helicopters were heard flying overhead early Thursday and at least one blast targeted a house at about 1 a.m. The U.S. military press office said it had no information on the incident. Mortar fire intended for coalition and Iraqi security forces regularly misses their targets and instead lands in residential areas.

The source of the explosion has not been confirmed, but residents claimed it was a rocket fired by an American helicopter.

Housewife Ikhlas Abdul-Hussein, 20, was killed in the blast, said her father, Abdul-Hussein Shanoof, who was wounded along with another woman and a 2-year-old child.
</snip>

Another link with more info:
U.S. Attack Within Baghdad Kills Woman

(AP) BAGHDAD A U.S. helicopter fired rockets Thursday into a crowded Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad during a battle with gunmen, killing a young woman and enraging residents and Shiite politicians.

The U.S. military said the helicopter fired into the Sadr City neighborhood around 1 a.m. as U.S. troops were pursuing a "known terrorist associated with Ansar al-Sunnah," a Sunni Arab militant group that has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide attacks and beheadings.

"As troops were leaving the area in a U.S. military helicopter, men on a nearby rooftop began firing at the aircraft," said military spokesman Sgt. Stacy Simon. "The helicopter returned fire with guns and rockets."

The military had no details on casualties, but Sadr City resident Abdul-Hussein Shanoof said his 20-year-old daughter, Ikhlas Abdul-Hussein, was killed. Shanoof was also wounded, along with another woman and a 2-year-old child.
</snip>

[maddezmom]

1. winning more hearts and minds

:eyes:

[DemonFighterLives]

2. Still a freakin mess eh?

Chasing another boogyman. Boo!
:nuke:

[saigon68]

3. No this tactic is used to TAKE OUT the SubHuman Opposition

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2340


GAZA CITY, March 22 – Israeli occupation forces, given a green light from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, assassinated in the small hours of Monday, March 22, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, triggering an immediate outcry across occupied Palestine.

An Israeli strike helicopter fired three missiles at crippled Yassin and his entourage while in their way back home following the dawn prayers, IslamOnline.net correspondent says.

Google "helicopter assassination" there are lots of hits

[donkeyotay]

10. This is one aspect that goes undiscussed

The whole idea of global surveillance backed by lethal UAVs being controlled by our totally just and moral but secretive and privatized military industrial complex. This idea that somehow 9-11 justifies doing away with a legal system and creating this Orwellian over-lord that kills as they please without recourse, petition or oversight.

I'm horrified by what "the good guys" have become. In the ensuing arms race, where everyone else needs these same means, the world will become an awful place. It was not weak or naive to be a beacon to the world. Now we are lighting the way for its descent.

[rodeodance]

4. Pent.was released 3 names of dead soldiers-happened Wed and I

believe they said more ?today?.

[rodeodance]

5. This was just on msnbc

[Tempest]

9. 5 U.S. soldiers killed yesterday

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_soldiers_killed

[Tin Man]

6. I guess the war with the Shiites is on again

On a positive note, at least we're not fighting the Kurds too. :sarcasm:

[Divernan]

7. Firing rocket at crowded neighborhood in the dark

Now everyone knows there are no electrc lights illuminating Sadr City after dark - no street lights, no security lights on buildings - they only have electricity sporadically. In response to sporadic fire from the rooftop of one building, the helicopter -failing to demonstrate the fabled pinpoint accuracy that that senile warmonger Rumsfeld sneeringly explained to the press corps - fired a rocket into a different building. Yet again another demonstration that after years of bloodshed (and record oil profits), the Bush "coalition" cannot even control the capitol city which they claim to occupy. As one Iraqi businessman recently stated, Saddam is out of power and the US should get the hell out of his country.

So starts another day in which I am sick at heart that my tax money goes to support this unjustified, murderous occupation. Once I was proud to be an American. I could not even look this young woman's family in the eyes to tell them how ashamed I am that Americans murdered this young woman.

[leftchick]

8. Photos.... I am sickened...

A family friend holds a young girl wounded from a US military helicopter attack on a home early Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006, in the Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraq. A U.S. helicopter fired rockets into a crowded Shiite neighborhood of eastern Baghdad on Thursday after gunmen shot at it, killing a young woman and enraging both residents and Shiite politicians. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)



Iraqi children stand outside their partially destroyed home in Baghdad's poor neighborhood of Sadr city. Four Iraqis were killed in a heavy gunfight that broke out before dawn reportedly between the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and US forces in Baghdad's Sadr City.(AFP/Karim Sahib )