Saturday, June 17, 2006

This Ain't Good

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. troops on Saturday searched for two soldiers missing after an attack that killed one of their comrades at a checkpoint in the so-called "Triangle of Death" south of Baghdad.

U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said four raids had been carried out since Friday's attack and that ground forces, helicopters and airplanes were taking part in the search.

He said a dive team also was going to search for the men, whose checkpoint was located by a Euphrates River canal near Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad.

The New York Times reported that Iraqi residents in the area said they saw two soldiers taken prisoner by a group of masked guerrillas. It said the two surviving soldiers were led to two cars and driven away.


The only hope is that since the story originated with the NYT maybe they got it wrong.

Fellow soldiers at a nearby checkpoint heard small-arms fire and explosions, and a quick-reaction force reached the scene in 15 minutes, the military said. The force found one soldier dead but no sign of the two others.

"We are currently using every means at our disposal on the ground, in the air and in the water to find them," said Caldwell, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.

The area is known as the Triangle of Death because of the frequent ambushes and attacks against U.S. soldiers and Iraqi troops.

2 comments:

The Sanity Inspector said...

Time for Operation Can Opener: Tear the roof off of every house in the province until we recover our soldiers.

Unknown said...

It sounds like something like that is happening.