US forces sweep through Mosul

The US army swept through the Iraqi city of Mosul today after after an insurgent strike on a military base killed 22 people and injured 72 in one of the deadliest attacks on American troops since the war began.

The US army swept through the Iraqi city of Mosul today after an insurgent strike on a military base killed 22 people and injured 72 in one of the deadliest attacks on American troops since the war began.

Investigators at the Mosul base have found remnants of a torso and a suicide vest, sources told ABC News, indicating that the attack was a suicide bombing.

The mess tent in Forward Operating Base Marez was the scene of the blast, which sprayed shrapnel as soldiers sat down to lunch yesterday.

A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which claimed responsibility for the attack, said it was a “martyrdom operation” – a reference to a suicide bomber.

Mortar attacks on US bases, particularly on the huge white tents that serve as dining halls, have been frequent in Iraq for more than a year.

Mosul’s streets were deserted today as hundreds of troops spread out across several neighbourhoods backed up by Bradley fighting vehicles and armoured Humvees.

Helicopter gunships clattered overhead and jets flew high above the city, 225 miles north of Baghdad.

Troops blocked Mosul’s five bridges over the Tigris River that link the western and eastern sectors of the city.

In a sign of the of the simmering tensions, most schools in the city were closed and few cars and people could be seen on the streets, although a formal curfew was not declared. Even traffic policemen were not at major intersections as usual.

The dead included 18 Americans – 14 soldiers and four US civilian contractors - and four Iraqis. Of the 72 wounded, 51 are US military personnel and the remainder are American civilians, Iraqi troops, and other foreigners.

At the military hospital near Mosul airfield, doctors and orderlies treated dozens of soldiers for burns, shrapnel wounds and damage to their eyes.

“This is the worst we have seen in the 11 months since we have been here,” said Master Sergeant David Scott, chief ward master for the hospital.

Sergeant Kyle Wright, recovering from wounds to his leg and back, said he was in the tent about to take a bite of chocolate cake when he was blown into the air.

“When I came to, I looked up and saw open sky,” said Wright, a member of the 276th Engineer Battalion.

There was little sympathy for the dead Americans on Mosul streets.

““When occupiers come to any country they find resistance. And this is within Iraqi resistance,” said Sattar Jabbar.

“I prefer that American troops leave the country and go out of cities so that Iraq will be safer and we run its affairs,” said Jamal Mahmoud, a trade union official. “I wish that 2,000 US soldiers were killed, not 20.”