IRAQ-MOSUL
Iraqi security forces In Najaf stormed a house?early Wednesday, leaving one suspect and one policeman dead, police said.?According to the AP, police said they detained another four suspects after they stormed their hideout.
Meanwhile, the U.S.?Army opened an investigation Wednesday into the cause of?Tuesday’s blast in a mess tent at a base in northern Iraq that killed 24 people and injured 72.
The dead included 18 Americans?- 14 soldiers and four U.S. civilian contractors – and four Iraqis, the U.S. military command in Baghdad said Wednesday. Of the 72 wounded, 51 are U.S. military personnel and the remainder are American civilians, Iraqi troops, and other foreigners.
“We are still investigating what caused the explosion,” Capt. Dorren Luke, a U.S. Baghdad, said Wednesday.
ABC News, however, reported Wednesday?that the bombing was a suicide attack. It should be noted that the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which claimed responsibility for the attack,?said it was a “martyrdom operation,” a reference to a suicide bombing attack.
A day after the?attack, another message posted on a Web site, allegedly by Ansar al-Sunnah, said the suicide bomber was a 24-year-old man from who worked at the base for two months and had provided information about the base to the group.
23-12-2004
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