Missile Fired at U.S. Plane in Iraq

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

(3:46 PM ET)

By Steven R. Hurst

Associated Press Writer

``Nobody is identified as al-Qaida yet. Could they be out there? its possible. The bottom line is I don't care if they're al-Qaida, I don't care if they're Fedayeen. I don't care if they are Baathists, I don't care who they are. If they attack the coalition and they attack the police they're gong to be arrested or they're going to be killed,'' said Bernard Kerik, former New York police commissioner, who is now running the Iraqi Interior Ministry and working to rebuild Iraq's police force.

Dejected US soldiers stand next to their colleague after he was killed in another attack on a military convoy Wednesday, July 16, 2003, in Baghdad, Iraq. A US soldier and an Iraqi child were killed and three others wounded in two separate attacks in the capital Wednesday.

Image Credit: Wally Santana -- AP

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- AP
In a marked escalation in attacks, suspected insurgents tried to shoot down a U.S. transport plane with a surface-to-air missile Wednesday, killed an American soldier in a convoy and gunned down the mayor of an Iraqi city. The violence came on the eve of a banned holiday Saddam Hussein loyalists could use to demonstrate their power.

The U.S. military said one surface-to-air missile was fired on a C-130 transport as it landed at Baghdad International Airport. It was only the second known missile attack on a plane using the airport since Baghdad fell to U.S. forces on April 9, said Spc. Giovani Lorente. He said he did not know where the plane came from or whether it was carrying passengers, cargo or both.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Nayil al-Jurayfi, who had actively cooperated with U.S. forces as mayor of Hadithah, was killed when his car was ambushed by attackers firing automatic rifles as he drove away from his office in the city 150 miles northwest of Baghdad, police Capt. Khudhier Mohammed said. One of the mayor's sons also was killed.

Mohammed said the mayor was slain because he was ``seizing cars'' from Saddam loyalists who used to work in the deposed Iraqi leader's offices in Hadithah, a city in the restive ``Sunni Triangle'' that is home to many supporters of the ousted dictator.

The American soldier was killed and three others were injured in a rocket-propelled grenade attack west of Baghdad near the Abu Ghraib prison, a U.S. military spokesman said. In a separate attack, an 8-year-old Iraqi child died when an assailant threw a grenade into a U.S. military vehicle guarding a bank in west Baghdad.

The American driver of the vehicle was wounded along with four Iraqi bystanders, according to Army Maj. Kevin West.

``They're killing more Iraqis than they are Americans,'' West said, shaking his head.
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2003 © The Associated Press.

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Dan