US soldiers help repel deadly attack in Iraq

September 6, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD

American soldiers helped Iraqi troops battle insurgents in downtown Baghdad on Sunday, repelling a major attack in the heart of the capital five days after President Barack Obama declared an end to U.S. combat operations.

At least 18 people were killed and 39 injured in the midday attack in which a group of suicide bombers and gunmen attempted to storm the Iraqi army’s eastern Baghdad headquarters, located in a former Ministry of Defense building in a busy market district alongside the Tigris River.

No Americans were among the casualties, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Eric Bloom. But U.S. soldiers did join in the fighting alongside Iraqis to repel the assailants, two of whom managed to enter the army compound.

“Soldiers living and working at Old MoD provided suppressive fire while IA [Iraqi army] soldiers located the two terrorists that entered the compound,” he said in an e-mail. The firefight lasted “a few minutes,” he said.

The U.S. military also dispatched helicopters, bomb-disposal experts, unmanned aerial drones and other unspecified “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” assets to the scene of the downtown battle, he said, highlighting the continued dependence of the Iraqi security forces on American expertise and high-tech equipment.

An official with the Interior Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Iraqi security forces requested American help to defeat the insurgents, and that it was U.S. soldiers who shot two snipers who had taken up positions in nearby buildings.