THE UNIVERSITY OF DALY KANSAN
MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2008
NEWS
11A
>> IRAQ WAR
American troops die in attack; Shiite tensions rise
Family members and friends of Father Youssed Adel carry his casket during his funeral at the St. Peter and Paul church in downtown of Baghdad on Sunday. An Assyrian Orthodox priest was shot to death on Saturday by gunmen using silencers as the Christian cleric and his wife returned home after a trip to the market in Baghdad.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY KIM GAMEL ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD — Suspected Shiite militants lobbed rockets and mortar shells into the U.S.-protected Green Zone and a military base elsewhere in Baghdad on Sunday, killing three American troops and wounding 31, officials said.
The attacks occurred as U.S. and Iraqi forces battled Shiite militants in Sadr City in some of the fiercest fighting since radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a ceasefire a week ago. At least 16 Iraqi civilians were killed and nearly 100 wounded in the fighting, according to hospital officials.
A military official said two U.S. troops died and 17 were wounded in the attack on the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government headquarters in central Baghdad.
Another American service member was killed and 14 were wounded in the attack on a base in the southeastern Baghdad area of Rustamiyah, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.
The U.S. military said separately that an American soldier was killed Sunday in a roadside bombing in the volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad. A U.S. soldier assigned to the division operating south of the capital also died Sunday from noncombat related injuries, according to a statement.
A senior U.S. military official, also declining to be identified for the same reason, said the rockets were fired at the Green Zone from Sadr City, while the mortar shells came from another predominantly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. New
The deaths raised to at least 4,018 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The strikes
Baghdad, New Baghdad.
U. S. comm an ders h ave blamed what they call Iranian-backed rogue militia groups for launching missiles against American forces.
American helicopters also fired Hellfire missiles that destroyed a vehicle and killed nine militants who were attacking Iraqi security forces with rocket-propelled grenades in the area, the military said in a statement.
The inability of the Iraqi security forces to curb the militias has cast doubt on their ability to take over their own security two days before the top American officials in Iraq — Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker — are to brief Congress on the prospects for further reductions in the U.S. troop presence in Iraq.
occurred despite a strong push by the U.S. military to prevent militants from using suspected launching sites on the southern edge of Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Fierce fighting erupted in Sadr City earlier Sunday after Iraqi troops backed by U.S. soldiers and attack helicopters tried to advance deeper into the enclave of some 2.5 million people.
The surge in violence came as tensions rose in Shiite areas despite al-Sadr's cease-fire order issued March 30 that eased nearly a week of clashes in Baghdad, Basra and other cities in the Shiite south. The cleric stopped short of asking his fighters to surrender their weapons and sporadic clashes have continued.
Al-Sadr has called for a "million-strong" anti-U.S. demonstration on Wednesday in Baghdad to protest the fifth anniversary of the capture of the Iraqi capital by invading U.S. troops.
At the edge of Sadr City, Lt. Col. Dan Barnett, the commander of the 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, said Iraqi forces had come under sustained fire overnight after establishing checkpoints deeper into the Shiite district.
"They're working to establish control," he said, speaking to a small group of reporters as heavy gunfire resounded outside a joint U.S.-Iraqi base.
Mortar shells also fell on a popular commercial area in the Jamila neighborhood, setting a fire that burned some 100 shops, according to the Baghdad military command. It said fire fighters came under heavy gunfire that slowed their efforts to extinguish the flames.
A local fire official, who declined
"Our situation is miserable. We lack food, water and electricity.The government should do something to end our suffering."
HUSSEIN KHAZIM
Taxi driver
who seemed to be identified because he wasn't supposed to discuss the issue, said the mortars had been aimed at a U.S.-occupied police station but fell short. That report could not be independently
verified.
Last week, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, ordered a nationwide freeze on Iraqi raids against Shiite militants, bowing to demands by al-Sadr who had hinted at retaliation if Iraqi security forces continue to arrest his followers.
U. S. commanders said they will fight back to maintain control of a swath of territory on the southern edge of Sadr City that has been
used as a launching site for rockets aimed at the Green Zone, which has come under steady fire since the current tensions began.
"Where we have criminal elements that are threatening the security and peace of the people of Iraq, we take action," said Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the top commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad.
The Iraqi government has relaxed security measures Saturday around the Mahdi Army strongholds of Sadr City and the Shula neighborhood, allowing trucks carrying maintenance teams, food, oil products and ambulances into the areas that still face a vehicle ban despite the lifting of a citywide curfew.
"Our situation is miserable. We lack food, water and electricity. This morning I saw two men being shot by a sniper as they were trying to cross the street near my house. The government should do something to end our suffering," said Hussein Khazim, a taxi driver who has been out of work since the turmoil erupted in late March.
But residents continued to complain of hardships.
Separately, the U.S. military said the largest cache of armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, had been found by Iraqi troops acting on a tip south of Baghdad.
Report rates airlines poorly Industry average went down in all criteria'in 2007
TRAVEL
BY JOSH FUNK
ASSOCIATED PRESS
OMAHA, Neb. — The nation's airlines performed worse last year than in any other year since 2000, according to one of the co-authors of an annual report on airline quality.
Full details of the Airline Quality Rating report, which measures how well the airlines minimize the hassles of flying, will be released Monday.
"They went down in all criteria. Every one of them," study co-author Brent Bowen said Friday about the airline industry average.
Bowen wouldn't discuss many details of the report before its release. But he said low-cost airlines performed better than national airlines, and the top three airlines in 2007 were all low-cost carriers.
Only one national airline improved its overall quality rating, said Bowen, who is a professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Aviation Institute.
The report's ratings are based on how many delays the airlines have, how often passengers are bumped off flights, how often bags are lost and how many complaints airlines receive.
rights recently to address safety concerns about some of their aircraft.
2007 transportation department data. But the Airline Quality Rating report will include data on the nation's 16 largest airlines.
Those recent problems won't be included in the quality report because it deals with
Bowen said he and the report's co-author, Wichita State University associate professor Dean Headley, plan to expand their scrutiny of the airline industry with new quarterly updates that will supplement the annual reports.
to conduct. Consumers who register at the Airline Quality Rating Web site, www. aqr.aero, will have a chance to weigh in on airline performance on a regular basis.
The quarterly updates will also include responses from consumer surveys Bowen and Headley plan
It has been compiled annually since 1991, but Bowen said the available data changed in 2000 so the latest findings can't be compared with airline performance in the 1990s. The research is sponsored by the Aviation Institute at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Wichita State University.
The report's ratings are based on how many delays the airlines have, how often passengers are bumped off flights, how often bags are lost and how many complaints airlines receive.
Bowen said
he hopes the airlines will use the new quarterly surveys to improve their performance, similar to the way they have responded to the annual quality report in the past.
"We're doing it for the benefit of the traveling public," he said.
The full Airline Quality Ratings will be released Monday at a Washington D.C. news conference.
The quality report will only add to a string of bad news for the airlines, which have been hurt by a slowing economy, high fuel prices and maintenance concerns.
ATA Airlines and Aloha Airlines both stopped flying earlier this week after filing for bankruptcy. And American, Southwest and Delta airlines have all had to cancel
ENTERTAINMENT '21' scores again, tops Clooney's "Leatherheads"
"Leatherheads"—a 1920s
LOS ANGELES — The gambling tale "21" kept up its winning streak as it took in $15.1 million to stay on top of the box office for a second-straight weekend, leaving George Clooney's "Leatherheads" and the family tale "Nim's Island" to scrimmage for second place.
football comedy directed by Clooney, who co-stars with Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski — had a soft opening of $13.5 million, below distributor Universal's expectations.
20th Century Fox's "Nim's Island" was right behind with $13.3 million. The family adventure centers on a bold girl (Abigail Breslin) alone on an island and her e-mail pen pal (Jodie Foster), an obsessive-compulsive, shut-in author.
Island" were so close that their rankings could switch after final weekend numbers are released Monday.
Overall, however, it was another dreary weekend for Hollywood, where business has lagged nearly every weekend since January. The top 12 movies took in $80.9 million, down 27 percent from the same weekend last year.
Associated Press
"Leatherheads" and "Nim's