Death does not take a holiday in Iraq. While much of America was watching the NFL Playoff schedule take final shape (not in China, though, damn!) coalition troops were fighting, dying and killing. That will put a damper on things NFL--even Brett Favre's banner day that spoiled the Vikings party (highlights, sometimes, on CNN Asian Edition). War is truly hell when it becomes so commonplace that we can speak or write about combat fatalities and football in almost the same breath.
Two American soldiers died in Iraq, the United States military announced today, one in an incident involving suspected rebels and another from an undetermined illness at a medical facility.
In Baghdad on Sunday, a soldier from a First Armored Division task force was killed and five other soldiers were wounded when an improvised explosive device detonated during a patrol east of the Karadah district of the capital at about 10:13 a.m.
The wounded soldiers were evacuated to military medical facilities, Central Command said in a statement today, but no other information was available.
The soldier who died from an unknown illness, from Task Force Ironhorse, was being treated at a medical center about six miles west of Bayji, between Tikrit and Mosul. Medical personnel immediately attended to the soldier, who was not identified, but were unable to revive him, Central Command said.
The incident is being investigated, the command said.
In an incident in the northern city of Mosul on Sunday, three Iraqis were killed and two American soldiers were wounded when a search for insurgents set off a firefight. Suspected members of the Ansar Al Islam militant group threw a grenade and fired on soldiers of the Second Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, searching a home for insurgents, the command said.
