World News

Attack on U.S. base kills 22

BAGHDAD (AP) - An explosion ripped through a mess tent at a military base in Mosul where hundreds of U.S. soldiers had just sat down to lunch Dec. 21, in what U.S. officials say was most likely an attack by a suicide bomber.

Officials said 22 people were killed and 69 wounded in one of the deadliest attacks on American troops since the war began. The dead included 13 U.S. military personnel, five U.S. and foreign national contractors and three Iraqi army personnel.

Radical Sunni Muslim group Ansar al-Sunnah Army later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was a "martyrdom operation," a reference to a suicide bomber.

Ansar al-Sunnah is believed to be a fundamentalist group that wants to turn Iraq into an Islamic state like Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. The Sunni Muslim group has claimed responsibility for beheading 12 Nepalese hostages and other recent attacks in Mosul.

The attack sparked renewed concerns about the ability of U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies to secure elections Jan. 30. The military said they had expected an increase in violence as insurgents attempt to derail the vote for an assembly that will draft Iraq's new constitution.

Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, was relatively peaceful in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003. But insurgent attacks in the largely Sunni Arab area have increased dramatically, particularly since the U.S.-led military operation in November to retake the insurgent-held city of Fallujah from militants, most of whom moved to Mosul.

Shukan ST: Jan. 7, 2005

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