BAGHDAD, 25 April 2007 — A suicide truck bomb killed nine US paratroopers and wounded 20 in the worst attack on American ground forces in Iraq in more than a year. An Al-Qaeda-linked group posted a Web statement yesterday claiming responsibility for the bombing on Monday.
The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni fighters that includes Al-Qaeda in Iraq, said it was behind the attack on a US patrol base in the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad — an area that has seen violence spike since American troops surged into the capital to halt violence there.
The victims were all members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, said a spokesman for the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based unit. It was the highest number of casualties for the division since the war began, Maj. Tom Earnhardt said.
“We are recovering, supporting the families during this time of loss, praying for them and continuing our mission,” said Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, the US military spokesman in northern Iraq. “The enemy brings nothing to benefit the people — nothing.”
In its Web posting, the Islamic State of Iraq put the number of Americans killed at 30.
In telephone interviews, residents of the Ameen area south of Baquba yesterday described what they believed was the same attack that killed the nine soldiers, though the US military did not confirm the accounts.
The residents said gunmen first fired on American snipers at a US base housed in an old Iraqi primary school, then a suicide car bomb rammed a checkpoint at the school’s entrance, breaking through blast walls and other fortifications. The first explosion left a path for a second suicide vehicle, a truck, to approach the building, the witnesses said.
Several American soldiers were caught beneath the building as it collapsed in the explosion, the residents said.
Monday’s attack was the single deadliest attack on US ground forces since Dec. 1, 2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 on a foot patrol near Fallujah. Twelve soldiers died when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Diyala on Jan. 20. The military said it might have been shot down but the investigation is still ongoing.
Standing firmly against a timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq, President George W. Bush said yesterday that he will veto the latest war spending bill taking shape in Congress.
“I’m disappointed that the Democratic leadership has chosen this course,” Bush said. “They chose to make a political statement,” he said. “That’s their right but it is wrong for our troops and it’s wrong for our country. To accept the bill proposed by the Democratic leadership would be to accept a policy that directly contradicts the judgment of our military commanders.”
Appropriators in the House of Representatives and the Senate agreed Monday on a $124 billion bill that would fund the Iraq war but order troops to begin leaving by Oct. 1 with the goal of completing the pullout six months later. Democrats would need a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto.
