3 British Soliders Die In Iraq: All the Families are Mourning'

Government to make Iraq statement

Nov 4 2004

The Government is to make a statement to MPs about the Black Watch troops in Iraq after details of an ambush emerged.

House of Commons authorities confirmed the ministerial statement would be made.

The double ambush by Iraqi rebels came during a night-time attack on a Warrior patrol, according to pooled reports from journalists with the Black Watch at their temporary base at Camp Dogwood near Baghdad.

http://icscotland.icnetwork.co.uk/news/uk/tm_objectid=14835838&method=full&siteid=50141&headline=government-to-make-iraq-statement-name_page.html

A suicide car bomber killed three British soldiers and a translator at a checkpoint in Iraq on Thursday, raising the prospect of a political backlash for Tony Blair who dispatched them to a dangerous area near Baghdad.

Junior Defense Minister Adam Ingram said eight British soldiers were wounded in the blast and mortar fire which followed the attack.

"Soldiers manning a vehicle checkpoint were targeted by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in a suicide attack, followed shortly afterwards by mortar fire," Ingram told a news conference in London.

The prime minister dispatched the troops north from the comparatively quiet British-patrolled sector of southern Iraq last month, in a decision hotly debated in parliament.

Critics have said the controversy surrounding the 30-day deployment would make the troops a tempting target for militants seeking to inflict a blow on British morale.

Blair agreed to send about 850 troops, mainly from the Black Watch regiment, to the areas near Baghdad to allow U.S. troops to reinforce units fighting guerrillas in the Sunni Muslim city of Falluja and elsewhere.

A spokeswoman for Blair said the prime minister's thoughts were with the families of those killed.

The deaths brought the toll of British troops killed in Iraq to 70. It was the worst incident since three soldiers were killed in August 2003.

A reporter from Britain's Times newspaper, contributing to a British media pool embedded with the Black Watch, said the unit had come under repeated rocket attacks at its camp.

To counter those attacks it expanded its patrol area to the opposite bank of the Euphrates River.

"To control one side of (the river) is good," said Captain Steve Melbourne, a spokesman with the regiment. "But the enemy can always go to the other side and shoot us."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6719805

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said it must be a "worrying and alarming time" for soldiers' families.

The Scottish National Party's Angus Robertson said the deaths would profoundly affect Scotland.

He added that the thoughts of everybody go to the family and friends of those in the regiment which traditionally draws its members from Scotland.

...

They were moved there to free up US forces for an assault on the troubled insurgent town of Falluja.

The deaths came just hours after the Black Watch force extended their area of operations to the east of the River Euphrates, south of the Iraqi capital.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3983979.stm

Deaths increase tension of night rocket attacks

Richard Lloyd Parry of the Times with the British press pool in Camp Dogwood, Iraq
Friday November 5, 2004
The Guardian

It would be hard to imagine many places on the planet bleaker, more miserable, and more dangerous than the Black Watch's new base at Camp Dogwood.

The featureless desert base, where the British battle group will spend the next month, is a wilderness of sand and mud. Mortars and rockets, fired by unknown insurgents, arc nightly into the rubble-strewn ground. But seldom has it been grimmer than it was last night.

As rumours leaked out in London, and in the British headquarters in the southern city of Basra, British officers in Camp Dogwood confirmed that the Black Watch had suffered its first deadly attack of the deployment. Three soldiers, and one of their Iraqi interpreters, were killed yesterday in an attack by Iraqi insurgents.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1344096,00.html

The attack was carried out with deadly thoroughness, and took planning that illustrated the depth of the militants' information. The soldiers from the Black Watch had ventured on to the east bank of the Euphrates, outside their original area of operation. But somehow the insurgents knew they were coming, and were waiting.

In the early hours of the morning two Warrior armoured cars were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. But this appeared to have been purely intended to draw in other potential victims; the militants did not press home their attack.

The troops in the Warrior called for help and more soldiers arrived, setting up a vehicle checkpoint, on the northern road to Baghdad, and seemingly under the belief that the worst of it was over. The soldiers were now on foot, unprotected by armoured vehicles.

Then the final move was executed. A car packed with explosives drove up to the checkpoint. As one of the soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter leant inside the window, the car exploded. Three soldiers and the interpreter were killed. It had hardly been a secret in Baghdad and Fallujah that the insurgents had been carrying out detailed surveillance of the area where the British battle group was to deploy. This is after all a place where militants do traffic duty on roads guiding locals away from the places where they had planted bombs.

But yesterday's attack showed how flexible and adaptable the rebels are and does not augur well for the British forces in their new home. It would be hard to imagine many places that are bleaker, more miserable, and more dangerous than the Black Watch's new base at Camp Dogwood.

The featureless desert base is a wilderness of sand and mud. Mortar shells and rockets fired by insurgents arc daily into the rubble-strewn ground but seldom has the mood been grimmer than it was last night.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=579657

canadas first division states that the point of war is to scrap the war machine and thusly free the people on their needs. the black whatch under Tony Bliar is a non-descript fascist organization of anti-working class scabs. why? there are many reasons not the less is that they have broken with the united nations charter which states that the u.n. was brought into being to secure the world peace, and that every member nation ought to secure through negotiation and democracy the end to war as a means of settling problems between nations. canadas first division backed by the british eighth army also pointed out that the world cannot survive now as the industrial revolution is put to the war machine. therefore the war machine and its manufactury must be dismantled thusly peace and freedom can be obtained what ever society is taking place. the bush invasion of iraq is criminal and illegal not the least for not explaining to the people that after the anti-imperialist revolution in iraq in 1958 and the comming into being of abdul kassam as president the us. c.i.a. hired an iraq assasin to kill the elected president of iraq. the hired assasin tried thee times and on the third time he succeeded, he killed the iraqi president. the name of that assasin was an unknown bathist right wing person named saddam hussein who then was given the palace of the end. and for twenty-seven years he served as the c.i.a`s man iraq. he did their bidding and overseered the torture and destruction of the democratic peoples and anti-imperialists as well as the best intellectuals, farmers, workers, and femminists in iraq. he did his dictatorship for the u.s. colonialists and accepted their weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical weapons taught to them by the experts from the u.s. military and the u.s. state department including the bush cabal rumsfield who overseered their application to the favour of the u.s. gaining all of iraqs oil. this is hidden by bush and company because they are lying to the troops and hiding the fact that u.s. imperialism since 1920 when it was given 25% of iraqi oil by the British Imperialist conqorers have since had the agenda of taking all of iraq oil and monopolizing the worlds market. this lately has proven false in that the planet is dying from coal, gas, oil and atomic energy as they pollute the world and the ecological green revolution has brought into being the hi-tech tools to re-tool the industrial revolution to wind, tidal, and solar power which is more power than can be used. no more blackouts. this non-pollution solution is given freely in natures kinder laws and provides work for all and forever more. viva socialism. scrap the polluting war machine and free therefore the people , plants and animals.