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58 US troops hurt in suicide bombing

Baghdad Sunni mosque blast kills three, US chopper shot down, 3 soldiers die in road accident

BAGHDAD, Agencies
A bomb ripped through a Sunni Muslim mosque in a largely Shia area of Baghdad yesterday, killing at least three people and wounding one, police say. Hours earlier, a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives at the gates of a military barracks, injuring 58
American troops and six Iraqi civilians.
Three US soldiers died in a road accident in central Iraq, and an American helicopter was reportedly shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade near Fallujah. The American military however said the aircraft made a ’’controlled landing."
The blast, which gouged a gaping
hole in the mosque nestled in Baghdad's Hurriyya district, raised the spectre of sectarian tension in Iraq, where Shia Muslims persecuted under Saddam Hussein hope to consolidate political power in the government that replaces him.
As they poked through the wreckage, residents called the incident part of a pattern of intimidation by Shias, who make up 60 per-ccnt of Iraq's population and whose leaders have largely opted to work with the country's US occupiers.
"We arc pointing the finger of accusation at the Shias for this act," said Sheikh Ahmad Dabbash, who leads prayers at the damaged Ahbab al-Mustafa mosque, and linked die blast io previous attacks on Sunni mosques in the capital.
The morning explosion shredded and scorched a car parked in the mosque’s courtyard, left behind pools of blood mingled with dust.
Like, other residents of the area, he disputed the bomb account pul forward by Iraqi police and insisted that a rocket or shell was fired into the mosque's courtyard from atop a nearbybuilding.
"Our view is that someone passing by the wall of the mosque put the bomb under the car, where it was timed to detonate,'’ said Captain
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Sabah Faid, who added there were no suspects in the blast as yet.
A military spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said the OH-58D Kiowa observation helicopter from the 82nd Airborne Division made a "controlled landing" at 2:30pm. There were two crewmen on board and neither was injured, the spokesman said, adding that a quick-reaction force had secured the area.
But an Associated Press reporter saw two helicopters flying in formation near the city, about 30 miles west of the capital, when one was hit by a grenade fired from the ground.
It went down immediately in an open field. The aircraft appeared structurally intact, but smoke was billowing from it. Two other helicopters with red crosses painted on the sides landed nearby a few minutes later, the reporter said.
In videotape shot shortly after the downing, an A-10 Thunderbolt II was seen flying above. Several other Kiowas also circled the area, and a convoy of military vehicles drove toward the downed helicopter.
Meanwhile, the attack at the army base occurred at 4:45am local time when a car drove to the gate of the base in Talafar, 30 miles west of the northern city of Mosul. Guards at the gate and in a watchtower opened fire on the vehicle and moments later it blew up, leaving a large crater at the gate's entryway.
Later Tuesday, another suicide bomber blew himself up outside a US Army compound near Baghdad, lightly injuring two soldiers, the U.S. military said.
A man acting suspiciously walked toward the gates of the base in Husseiniya, 15 miles northeast
of Baghdad, said Maj Josslyn Aberle, a US military spokeswoman. When military police guarding the gate opened fire, he activated an explosive device and blew himself up.
Col. Michael Linnington, commander of the 3rd Brigade which controls the area west of Mosul and all the way to the Syrian border, said the attack was a suicide mission and that the attacker's remains were "all over the compound."
"Right now we have four soldiers that were evacuated and are being treated for blast injuries. In addition, 37 soldiers have nicks, cuts, bruises and some broken bones," he said. A base translator was also injured in the blast, which damaged nearby homes. Several other civilians, including a 2-year-old girl, were hurt by flying glass.
The early morning blast occurred when most soldiers were still in their barracks, and there was no traffic around the gate.
Pieces of the attacker's car were scattered hundreds of meters away from the site of the blast. A school across the street from the military compound was heavily damaged, but no pupils were injured because the bomb exploded before classes began.
Meanwhile, three US soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade died and one was injured in an accident when an embankment collapsed beneath their armoured personnel carriers north of Baghdad, the military said yesterday.
The deaths bring to 448 the number of US soldiers who have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion on March 20. Of those, 308 have died as a result of hostile action.