CNN: Mortar attack kills 5 girls, ages 12 to 14, at Baghdad school

[DeepModem Mom]

Mortar attack kills 5 girls at Baghdad school
January 28, 2007


Blood drips down a step at a girls school in Baghdad that was hit by mortars Sunday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi schoolgirls taking their midterm exams were the target of a mortar attack Sunday morning that killed five of the students and wounded 21, an Iraqi interior ministry official said.

Insurgents fired at least three mortar rounds at the al-Khulood girls secondary school in western Baghdad, the official said.

The girls who were killed were between the ages of 12 and 14 years.

Those injured included students, employees and workers at the school in the mainly Sunni Adil neighborhood, which is under the jurisdiction of the Iraqi army, the official said.

Video from the scene showed blood spread across stone steps. The windows of classrooms were shattered....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/28/iraq.main/index.html

[tanyev]

1. Another school to rebuild.

Laura Bush, 12/14/06

“I do know that there are a lot of good things that are happening that aren’t covered," she said. "And I think that the drum beat in the country from the media, from the only way people know what is happening unless they happen to have a loved one deployed there, is discouraging....

"There are also good things going on that people don't have a chance to see....Schools that are being built. There are parts of country that are rebuilding....So I'd like to see the media give a more balanced view of it."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003521978

:grr:

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Yes. nt

[oblivious]

3. Yikes. I haven't been following this. THREE helicopters down in one week.

from the OP

U.S. helicopter reportedly shot down

Insurgents battling U.S. and Iraqi forces near the Shiite holy city of Najaf shot down a U.S. helicopter on Sunday during intense fighting, an Iraqi police official told CNN, citing eyewitnesses and police on the scene. (Watch battle raging, smoke rising reportedly from helicopter crash Video)

The U.S. military said it is investigating reports of the incident.

If confirmed, the crash comes just more than a week after a Black Hawk helicopter -- believed to have been downed by a shoulder-fired missile -- crashed in Iraq's Diyala province last Saturday, killing 12 U.S. soldiers on board. (Full story)

A helicopter belonging to the U.S. security firm Blackwater went down in Iraq on Tuesday, after coming under heavy fire.

[JohnnyLib2]

4. My sickening thought is,

will we hear in a week that this was U.S. mortar? Can we believe anything at this point?

[sakabatou]

5. It's very hard to

That's why it's good to have multiple sources.

[bdrube]

6. A girls' school in Baghdad was like putting a dunking chair on the psychotic midway.

Given how radical Muslims feel about women's education.

[Omaha Steve]

7. Mortar Hits Baghdad School, Killing 5 Girls (NYT)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/world/middleeast/28cnd-schools.html?ex=1170651600&en=2227f350aaf65885&ei=5043&partner=EXCITE

Mortar Hits Baghdad School, Killing 5 Girls

By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: January 28, 2007

BAGHDAD, Jan. 28 — The girls had just finished taking an exam and were gathering in an inner courtyard at a school in a mainly Sunni section of western Baghdad on Sunday when a mortar crashed down.

The explosion killed at least five girls, aged 12 to 16, and wounded at least 20, witnesses and Iraqi officials said, tearing limb from limb, shattering glass, shredding the students’ blue and white uniforms and leaving the survivors bloodied and confused.

“She hugged and kissed me, then went outside and the bomb hit,” a teacher at the scene said, referring to one of the girls. “After a few minutes, she was dead.”


Asaad Mouhsin/Associated Press

A man removed a bloody schoolbook at the scene of a mortar explosion in Baghdad that killed at least five girls.


FULL story at link.

[phillysuse]

8. Leave No Child Behind

Iraqi style.

Shame that Laura or Karen Hughes weren't visiting.

[smirkymonkey]

9. What kind of fucking cowards blows up little girls?

I can't believe how backwards these people are (not Iraqi's, but those blowing up girls' schools).

Is there any hope for a nation that keeps its population mired in ignorance? Do they think people will realize what a crock religion is if they become educated?