"Explosion rips Baghdad suburb as Rumsfeld leaves"

[Cha]

snips~

japantoday > world

Saturday, December 25, 2004 at 06:48 JST

BAGHDAD — A gas tanker truck wired with explosives blew up in a west Baghdad neighborhood Friday, killing one person, wounding 19 and lighting up the night sky with a fireball, just hours after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left the capital.

There were no members of the multinational forces among the casualties, said Capt Brian Lucas, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.


The butane truck was parked near the Libyan Embassy in the Mansour district, an upscale district where many foreigners live and embassies are located, police said. Residents said they could hear small-arms fire immediately after the blast.

Most of the wounded suffered severe burns, said a doctor at Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital. Three nearby houses were damaged by the blast, though there were no injuries inside the embassies." end snips


More at...
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=323072

[xchrom]

1. that was the punchline.

to the rumsfeld joke.

[Pastiche423]

2. Timing is everything

[u4ic]

3. The ONE thing

that would lower the troops morale more than his visit.

[arikara]

4. lighting up the night sky with a fireball, just hours after

Hours after is not really the same thing as the title suggests... "as Rumsfeld leaves". It sounded like they just missed him.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cha]

6. Poor translation on

Japantoday's part.

[NYC]

7. Television phrased it as "minutes".

[bemildred]

8. 12 dead in Baghdad fuel truck explosion

Seems to be a discrepancy in the numbers ...
Killing the Sheik doesn't seem like the brightest move either.

BAGHDAD � Twelve people were killed when fuel truck blew up in the Al Mansour district of Baghdad late yesterday, police were quoted as saying by the CNN news channel reporting from the Iraqi capital.

First reports were also speaking of 15 people injured. The police were quoted as saying the blast was believed to have been caused by a suicide driver steering the vehicle into a residential street.

Several homes were reported destroyed or ablaze after the blast. The area in western Baghdad is a wealthy district not far the the Green Zone housing the US embassy and interim government offices.

Three people including a tribal sheikh and a child were killed in attacks north of the Iraqi capital, the US military and local police said yesterday, as insurgents shelled a police station with mortars.

Khaleej Times