BAGHDAD, 2 December 2003 — Sunday’s attacks in Samarra targeted two US troop convoys transporting new Iraqi currency as part of an exchange scheme to replace old notes carrying the face of Saddam Hussein.
“It was a coordinated attack... on a convoy that was delivering a significant amount of Iraqi currency,” Col. Fredrick Rudesheim of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team Commando said yesterday.
“It was a concerted effort by the enemy to deal a significant blow to coalition forces,” said Rudesheim. Asked about how much money was with the convoys, he declined to give a specific sum, saying only that it was a “significant” amount.
The US colonel stressed that the money had already been successfully delivered when the insurgents opened fire on the convoys as they pulled away from the banks. US commanders accuse their Iraqi foes of using their financial reserves not only to buy arms but also to offer cash rewards for attacks on US troops or other targets.
The US military said 54 Iraqis were killed in the firefight. But residents said the casualty figure was much lower and that the dead were mostly civilians.
Challenged about what happened to the bodies of the 54 militants said to have been killed, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said: “I would suspect that the enemy would have carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base was.”
Kimmitt acknowledged that the one insurgent now confirmed in custody was a sharp reduction on the 11 claimed captured by the commanding colonel earlier in the day.
“Some of those early reports might have been a bit off,” he said.
The scars of the battle were evident yesterday. About a dozen cars lay destroyed in the streets, many apparently crushed by tanks, and bullet holes pocked many buildings. A rowdy crowd gathered at one spot, chanting pro-Saddam slogans. One man fired warning shots in the air when journalists arrived at the scene.
Many residents said Saddam loyalists attacked the Americans, but that when US forces began firing at random, many civilians got their guns out and joined the fight.
US casualties meanwhile kept mounting. An American soldier was killed yesterday near Habbaniya, west of Baghdad, after his patrol came under attack from insurgents. Three Iraqis were captured during the clash and were being questioned, a military statement said.
— Additional input from agencies
