Large Blast Hits Bus Carrying Iraqi Soldiers -WP [View All]

[Rose Siding]

TALL AFAR, Iraq, April 5 -- A huge bomb exploded near a bus filled with Iraqi soldiers returning from leave Tuesday, killing at least three and wounding at least 44 in an attack that showed how even a payroll issue in Iraq can turn deadly.

The Iraqi soldiers were en route to a U.S. base here from the city of Sinjar, where they had dropped off their monthly pay. Because Iraq's banking system cannot accommodate direct deposits, recruits are given a week's leave each month to carry their money home -- a system that has created chronic security problems and hampered the U.S. military's efforts to develop Iraq's new army.

The bus, carrying nearly 50 soldiers, was surrounded by several trucks mounted with guns to fend off an attack by insurgents. But as the bus neared a checkpoint in the late afternoon on the west side of Tall Afar, a violent city of about 250,000 near the Syrian border, the bomb exploded close to its left side.

"I think knew that this was our day to come back," said Capt. Ismail Simmo, who said he was riding in one of the gun trucks when the bomb exploded. "We thought we were safe."

For three hours Tuesday night, a tableau at once bleak and inspiring unfolded in the shadows near an aid station at Forward Operating Base Sykes. American soldiers working in teams used stretchers or their own shoulders to move the bloodied Iraqis between the intensive care unit and medevac helicopters that ferried at least 20 of them to a U.S. combat support hospital in Mosul, about 35 miles to the east.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28309-2005Apr5.html