Five days old, but still important: Female U.S. Marines Ambushed in Iraq
A suicide car bomber and gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying female U.S. Marines in Fallujah, killing two Marines and leaving another four American troops presumed dead, the military said Friday. At least one woman was killed and 11 of 13 wounded were female.Charmaine is aThe terror group al-Qaida in Iraq claimed it carried out the bombing, one of the single deadliest attacks against the Marines — and against women — in this country. The high number of female casualties spoke to the lack of any real front lines in Iraq, where U.S. troops are battling a raging insurgency and American women soldiers have taken part in more close-quarters combat than in any previous military conflict.
The women were part of a team of Marines who were assigned to various checkpoints around Fallujah. Female Marines are used at the checkpoints to search Muslim women "in order to be respectful of Iraqi cultural sensitivities," a military statement said. It is considered insulting for a male Marine to search a female Muslim.
Current Pentagon policy prohibits women from serving in front line combat roles — in the infantry, armor or artillery, for example.
"It's hard to stop suicide bombers, and it's hard to stop these people that in many cases are being smuggled into Iraq from outside Iraq," President Bush said at a joint White House news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The Marines were returning to their base, Camp Fallujah, when the ambush took place Thursday night near the eastern entrance to the city, 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Fallujah is a former insurgents' fortress that was invaded by U.S. forces at great cost last November; it also the city where an Iraqi mob hung the mutilated bodies of two U.S. contractors from a bridge. On Nov. 2, 2003, two female Army soldiers were in a Chinook helicopter shot down over Fallujah.
At least one of the dead Marines in Thursday's attack was a woman, as were 11 of the 13 wounded. The woman was killed when the car bomber attacked the vehicle in which she was traveling.