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The LA Times reports a Suicide truck bombing kills 5 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Five U.S. soldiers and two Iraq national policemen were killed by a suicide truck bomb outside the national police headquarters in southwest Mosul. 200 pounds of explosives were detonated by the bomber.
The NY Times notes this was the Deadliest attack against American soldiers here in 13 months and “the second in Mosul since February, when four soldiers were killed in a suicide car bomb attack against their patrol.”
Meanwhile the CS Monitor reports that Six years after Iraq invasion, Jordan still playing host to thousands of Iraqi refugees. In Jordan “only 300 of as many as half-a-million refugees have returned home” and “Iraqis are still trickling across the border.”
“An interesting trend is that there are still new arrivals from Iraq,” says Rafiq Tschannen, the chief of mission in Amman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). “And contrary to the first arrivals, we see people going to live in villages instead of Amman, where the cost of living is high. These refugees have less money and they look to the cheapest villages they can find.”
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The NY Times reports Captain recaptured after trying to escape from pirates. Capt. Richard Phillips jumped into the Indian Ocean in an escape attempt, but was recaptured by the pirates and dragged back into the drifting lifeboat by the pirates. “Residents in a pirate stronghold in Somalia, meanwhile, said that the pirates, desperate to get back to shore with their captive, had themselves called in additional vessels and men.”
The LA Times adds Phillips appeared to be unharmed by the episode.
Keeping other pirate vessels away from the craft is key to the U.S. strategy. Defense officials believe their negotiating position will grow stronger as the pirates run low on supplies. Officials will probably try to prevent the pirates from moving to another vessel or halt any ship from re-supplying the lifeboat.
There are now two large naval vessels in the area, the destroyer Bainbridge and the frigate Halliburton. But the Navy did not appear to have a smaller boat in the water near the lifeboat at the time of the escape.
Um… we have a U.S.S. Halliburton? No, at least not in name. I believe this is a typo for the the U.S.S. Halyburton. Freudian slip on the part of the LA Times, perhaps?
Four at Four continues with 22,000 percent return on lobbying money for corporate America, the Obama dog, Easter eggs, and Dave Arneson runs out of hit points.