6/24/2005
Six U.S. Marines were presumed killed in a deadly car bomb attack on a U.S. convoy in Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, a U.S. military official said on Friday.
"Two Marines were killed and we presume that the other four troops, who are missing, were killed," said the official, who demanded anonymity.
The U.S. Marines released a statement saying that the three missing Marines and a sailor believed to be in the attacked U.S. vehicle "were currently listed as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown pending a positive identification."
Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said that 13 Marines were also injured in the attack, which took place late Thursday. He added that some women were among the casualties.
The car bomb hit troops assigned to the II Marine Expeditionary Force, an earlier military statement said.
More than 1,730 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
News of the latest deaths came as the U.S. President George W. Bush met Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari at the White House. Both leaders vowed to defeat the resistance, but refused to set a deadline for the withdrawal.
"The enemy's goal is to drive us out of Iraq - they will not succeed," Bush said. "It's tough work and it's hard. But nevertheless, progress is being made... and the progress that is being made will lead to the defeat of this enemy."
Meanwhile, three separate roadside bombs exploded Friday near U.S. and Iraqi military convoys, officials said. The most powerful attack was in Kirkuk, 80 miles north of Baghdad, where three Iraqi police officers were seriously injured.
In the northern city of Mosul, a mortar attack on a police academy missed its target and hit nearby homes, killing one Iraqi woman, police Capt. Ziyad Ahmed said.
Separately, former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who is awaiting trial in an Iraqi prison, said that he will not testify in court against the toppled Iraq leader Saddam Hussein.
“Aziz told me that he will not take the witness stand against Saddam,” attorney Badi Aref Izzat said, adding that Azizi also wants a trial on "independent soil", such as Holland or Sweden.
Izzat also said that he attended the first official interrogation of Aziz at a U.S. base near the Baghdad airport on Tuesday.
“This is the first time I attended the so-called official interrogation for my client, Tariq Aziz, since his surrender, although I am not sure if the room I was taken to in the U.S. base in Baghdad was a real court, or even those who were attending were really members of any court,” he said.
"My client told me that he was in good health and spirits, and the medical treatment offered to him is improving, despite his more than two-year detention," Izzat added.