Rockets spread fear in Baghdad's Green Zone

[marmar]

from AFP, via Yahoo!



by Bryan Pearson
Sun Mar 30, 1:48 PM ET



BAGHDAD (AFP) - With volleys of mortars and rockets raining down daily on Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, security rules for soldiers and diplomats in the complex have taken on a chilling new urgency.

Two US officials and two Iraqi guards of Sunni Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi have been killed since last Sunday, when the first waves of attacks began on the zone, seat of the Iraqi government and home to foreign embassies.

Some staff members of the US embassy admit they are in a state of constant fear and prefer to sleep on cots inside the embassy building -- formerly a palace of Saddam Hussein -- than in their less-safe living quarters.

Warning alarms in the Green Zone, the most shelled 10 square kilometres (four square miles) of Baghdad, give about three seconds to find shelter in one of the numerous "duck and cover" concrete bunkers, a US military officer said.

"As you drive through, you are constantly assessing where is the nearest bunker," he added.

The officer, who would not be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media, demonstrated to an AFP reporter an incident this week which illustrates the predicament facing those out in the open when the sirens sound.

"We were driving here and the bunker is over there," he said, pointing up the road to a shelter about 50 metres (yards) away. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080330/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestbaghdadgreenzone

[gateley]

1. Are the Hueys hovering yet?

All the years I did acid way back when, and I have Bush to blame for my only 'flashback'. :grr:

[tanyev]

2. But rockets sound so exciting and romantic when people sing the Star Spangled Banner.

[lovuian]

3. We are not Winning this War and the surge did nothing

and we need to get out of there

[genie_weenie]

4. Good News! Increased violence means victory!