NBC News and news services
Updated: 6:17 p.m. ET Dec. 21, 2004
MOSUL, Iraq - In one of the deadliest single attacks on U.S. troops since the start of the Iraq war, an explosion ripped through a mess tent at a military base near Mosul on Tuesday, killing at least 24 people — 15 of them American soldiers— and wounding scores more, military officials said.
NBC News' Jim Miklazsewski reported that nine civilian contractors and Iraqi soldiers were also killed, and that 61 Americans, Iraqis and contractors were wounded, though a breakdown of the identities of the wounded was not immediately available.
Confusion continued to shroud many details of the blast, which killed U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army soldiers, according to Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul.
It was not immediately possible to reconcile differing death counts. “The number is very chaotic. We've had different numbers,” said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia. ”Things are rather fluid right now, and the numbers are going to change.”
Reporter witnesses attackJeremy Redmon, a Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch reporter embedded with U.S. troops in Mosul, witnessed the chaos firsthand.
He reported on the newspaper's Web site that a rocket or rockets struck a large tented mess hall at Forward Operating Base Marez, about 3 miles south of Mosul, at lunchtime as it was crowded with hundreds of soldiers and some civilians. Multiple explosions sprayed shrapnel and knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats, Redmon said.
Hastings later said that the cause of what he said was a “single explosion” remained under investigation. “We do not know if it was a mortar or ... explosive,” he said.
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