BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida-linked group claimed Tuesday that it used "new methods" in staging a double suicide bombing with dump trucks that blasted a paratrooper outpost in volatile Diyala province, killing nine Americans from the 82nd Airborne Division and wounding 20.
The first truck hit outlying concrete barriers surrounding the outpost at Sadah and exploded after soldiers opened fire. A second truck rammed into the wrecked vehicles, dragging it and other rubble before it exploded 30 yards from the building housing the post's troops, said Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, U.S. military spokesman in north Iraq.
Neither vehicle penetrated the patrol base's inner perimeter, but the second powerful blast ruptured the wall of the building, collapsing its second floor and causing most of the soldier casualties, a U.S. military statement said Wednesday. A civilian house was destroyed and several smaller structures collapsed in a nearby neighborhood, the military said. A civilian hospital and a mosque about 200 yards from the patrol base also were damaged.[d]