Iraq car bomb wounds 58 US soldiers

Fifty-eight US soldiers were wounded after a car bomb exploded at the entrance to their base in a northern Iraq town.

Fifty-eight US soldiers were wounded after a car bomb exploded at the entrance to their base in a northern Iraq town.
The suicide bomber drove his car to the gate of the base in the town of Talafar, 30 miles west of Mosul.
Guards at the gate and in a watchtower opened fire on the vehicle and moments later it blew up. The bomb left a large crater.
Colonel Michael Linnington, commander of the 3rd Brigade which controls the area, said the attack was a suicide mission and that the attacker's remains were "all over the compound."
Col Linnington said soldiers manning the gate at the camp 45 km (28 miles) west of Mosul opened fire after the driver charged towards them, ignoring orders to stop.
"The soldiers hit the driver several times, causing him to detonate the bomb prematurely," Col Linnington said. "He was definitely trying to get through the gate and into the camp."
Most of the 58 soldiers injured suffered cuts, bruises and broken bones, the military said, but four were more seriously wounded and were evacuated to a military hospital.
An Iraqi translator at the base was also wounded and two Iraqis in the town were hospitalised with cuts, a doctor said.
The US army said there was also a suicide attack at an American field hospital north of Baghdad. An officer at the hospital said some soldiers were slightly wounded when a man approached acting as if he was wounded and detonated a device apparently strapped to his back.
Elsewhere, three American soldiers died and one was injured when an embankment collapsed beneath their armoured personnel carriers north of Baghdad.
"The accident was not a result of hostile action," a military spokesman said.
The deaths bring to 448 the number of US soldiers who have died in Iraq since the war began on March 20th. Of those, 308 have died as a result of hostile action. The British military has reported 52 deaths,  Italy 17, Spain eight, and  Denmark, Ukraine and Poland one each. 
  • A US helicopter has preformed a "controlled landing" in Iraq today and there were no injuries, the US military said today. Earlier, witnesses said the helicopter crashed near the town of Falluja. One report suggested the helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

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