Three US troops were killed and one was wounded Mondaty evening when two Stryker vehicles they were riding in rolled into a canal, US Army officials announced Tuesday.
The Stryker Infantry carrier vehicles were traveling on a rural road during combat patrol northeast of Ad Duluiyah, Iraq, when an embankment collapsed, causing the rollover, Lt. Col. William MacDonald said from Tikrit. "The accident was not a result of hostile fire," he noted.
The injured soldier was taken to a hospital in Balad, Iraq, MacDonald said. Both vehicles were recovered and the accident was under investigation, he added.
In Baquba, north of Baghdad, the town’s police bomb disposal chief Captain Fallah Khadduri was killed as he tried to defuse an improvised explosive device. Colleagues charged that the bomber deliberately detonated the device by remote control as the disposal expert attempted to make it safe.
Meanwhile, a new survey concluded that Saddam Hussein's regime may have executed 61,000 Baghdad residents, a number significantly higher than previously believed.
The Gallup Baghdad Survey, which the polling firm planned to release on Tuesday, asked 1,178 Baghdad residents in August and September whether a member of their household had been executed by Saddam's regime. According to Gallup, 6,6 percent said yes.
The polling firm took metropolitan Baghdad's population - 6,39-million - and average household size - 6,9 people - to calculate that 61,000 people were executed during Saddam's rule. Most are believed to have been buried in mass graves.
Some Iraqi political parties estimate more than one million were executed. The United States-led occupation authority in Iraq has said that at least 300,000 people are buried in mass graves in Iraq. Human rights officials put the number closer to 500,000, and some Iraqi political parties estimate more than one million were executed. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
