Coalition records its 1,000th death in
Iraq
CNN
| July 9 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. soldier has
died of wounds he suffered in fighting in Baghdad late Thursday, a U.S.
military spokesman said.
The death brings coalition deaths -- both hostile and non-hostile
-- since the start of the war to 1,000. U.S. military deaths now total 880,
with 657 of them by hostile fire.
The spokesman said five insurgents were detained in the
fighting.
On Thursday, a mortar attack killed five U.S. troops and
an Iraqi National Guard member in the central Iraqi city of Samarra, according
to a U.S. military spokesman in Tikrit.
Twenty soldiers and three Iraqis were wounded.
The 10:30 a.m. strike collapsed the National Guard headquarters,
which is frequently used by soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division.
The 1st Infantry Division and Iraqi security services patrol
the area. Division radar located the point from which the mortars were fired
and shot back with four 120 mm rounds.
Samarra is 120 kilometers (about 75 miles) northwest of
Baghdad.
Elsewhere Thursday, Ali Abass Hassen, a textile factory
owner, was killed in a Baghdad car bombing, possibly because of his past
affiliation with the Baath Party, police said.
An Iraqi police officer said a car bomb planted in Hassen's
car exploded when he started it up in the Al-Doura district south of Baghdad.
New threatened beheadings
In a video aired Thursday by the Arabic-language network
Al-Jazeera, an Iraqi insurgent group threatened to behead two Bulgarian
hostages within 24 hours if the United States does not release all prisoners
in Iraq.
Video showed the two Bulgarians sitting with their hands
tied while three armed masked men stood behind them.
The insurgents, calling themselves the Unification and
Holy War group, read a statement telling the Bulgarian government its alliances
with the U.S. government has jeopardized the safety of its citizens in Iraq.
(Full story)
With last month's handover of power, the Iraqi interim
government now has legal custody of all prisoners with the United States
playing a security role.
Any decision on the release of prisoners would have to
be made by the Iraqi government.
Missing Marine in Lebanon
U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who disappeared from his unit in Iraq
last month and was depicted on a videotape as having been captured by insurgents,
arrived Thursday evening at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, the State
Department said.
U.S. officials said the United States hoped to transport
Hassoun to the U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany, for a medical examination
and debriefing.
Hassoun was trained as a truck driver but worked as an
Arabic translator with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. He was last seen
June 19 and was reported missing when he failed to report for duty the next
day.
Al-Jazeera aired a video June 27 showing Hassoun blindfolded
with a sword suspended over his head. A narrator on the tape said the captive
would be killed if the United States did not free jailed Iraqis. On June
30, the Pentagon listed him as captured.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service was put
in charge of an investigation into Hassoun's disappearance after he failed
to report for duty, sources told CNN.
