Tuesday, July 08, 2003

RECALL THAT ONLY RECENTLY THIS HIGHWAY WAS A LOT MORE DANGEROUS.

We hear that a brigade of 3d ID has been relocated to make it safer.
Two U.S. soldiers were slightly wounded on Tuesday when an explosion damaged their Humvee vehicle on the outskirts of Baghdad, a U.S. military officer said.

An explosive device blew up as the Humvee drove on Highway Eight between Baghdad and the international airport at around 9.30 a.m., Major Ed Bohnemann told Reuters on the scene.

He described the injuries of the two soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division as light.

The Humvee had its trunk blackened and blown off.

U.S. convoys traveling on Highway Eight have come under attack several times since the toppling of President Saddam Hussein three months ago.

"We've actually found some (explosive devices) in the past couple of days and caught them before they blew up," Bohnemann said.

The whole story is here.

MORE ON THAT STORY plus news of another incident.


Reuters reporter Daniel Trotta, embedded with U.S. forces, said an anti-tank mine exploded under a Bradley fighting vehicle travelling in a convoy in the town of Khan Dhari, 30 km (20 miles) west of Baghdad, wounding the driver.

Trotta, who was with the convoy, said a Humvee military vehicle and a truck had apparently driven over the mine without triggering it.

''When the Bradley drove over it, it blew up, wounding the driver,'' Trotta said. ''The hull of the vehicle was split and the engine was spewing oil.''

The driver, Specialist Justine Howard from Georgia, was wounded in the back.

''I feel very lucky, scared too,'' Howard told Reuters as he was being taken in a Humvee to a medical facility.

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