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Blast in Shiite Area of Baghdad Kills 26    [

    Top US Surgeon in Iraq Killed in Crash
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 25 January 2007

    Oklahoma City - The top U.S. surgeon in Iraq was among the 12 soldiers killed when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed near Baghdad, the Pentagon confirmed this week.

    Col. Brian D. Allgood, whose father and two uncles served in Vietnam, had spent more than 20 years in the military.

    "Brian was a wonderful human being," his mother, Cleo Allgood, told The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colo. "He was a wonderful brother, son, husband and father. He just was a giving person who served his country."

    Allgood, 46, had been serving in Iraq for about six months before the crash Saturday, said his uncle, Dr. Richard Allgood of Lawton.

    A Colorado Springs native who had lived in Oklahoma, Allgood graduated from West Point in 1982 and from the University of Oklahoma Medical Center four years later, his uncle said. He completed his residency at Fort Sam Houston military medical complex in San Antonio and continued with his military career.

    "He just really was a wonderful young man," Richard Allgood said. "I think that he always wanted to be in the military and I think that's what he thought his life and function was going to be. I think he did it willingly. I don't think he had any reservations about what he was doing."

    The military said 12 soldiers were killed in the crash in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. A Pentagon official has said debris at the crash site indicated the helicopter was downed by a surface-to-air missile, but American military officials in Baghdad have declined to confirm that.

    In more than two decades in the military, Allgood had parachuted into Panama and had served as the commanding officer of the hospital at West Point, his uncle said. He was the commanding officer of medical facilities in Korea for two years before being sent to Iraq.

    Brian Allgood's wife, Jane, and son, Wyatt, were living in Germany, where he was to be stationed in July, Allgood's uncle said. He also had a brother and a sister.

    He was one of two active-duty soldiers killed in Saturday's crash. The 10 other soldiers were members of the National Guard, making it the deadliest single combat incident for the Guard since at least the Korean War of 1950-1953, Mark Allen, a National Guard Bureau spokesman, said Thursday.

    The military has relied heavily in the Iraq war on the Guard, which provided about 50 percent of the Army's combat power in the campaign during 2005, Allen said.

    The percentage has been scaled back. As of Jan. 12, there were 22,500 Army National Guard soldiers deployed among the 132,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and another 10,000 in transit, either on their way there or their way home.

 

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    Blast in Shiite Area of Baghdad Kills 26
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 25 January 2007

    A suicide car bomber struck a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in central Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 26 people and wounding 54, police said. The blast occurred shortly after two rockets slammed into the heavily fortified Green Zone.

    Two hours later a second huge explosion rocked the area. Police said they had blown up a second car bomb that had been disabled before its second suicide bomber could detonate the vehicle.

    A massive plume of black smoke rose into the air on the east bank of the Tigris River and heavy gunfire rang out across the city center in the aftermath.

    The suicide bomber struck in the central neighborhood of Karradah, the second bombing to strike the area in three days. At least three policemen were among the dead.

    Angry Shiite residents took to the streets chanting "We want the Sunnis out!" There is a small Christian and Sunni population in that section of the city.

    Most of the bomb attacks in the sectarian warfare that has consumed the capital and central Iraq for the past year are believed to be the work of Sunni insurgents attacking Shiites.

    The blast shattered windows in surrounding apartment buildings and devastated several vehicles as sirens from emergency vehicles wailed.

    It struck shortly after the explosions in the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and Iraqi government offices, the public address system inside the massive compound could be heard warning in English that people should take cover, "this is not a drill."

    The U.S. military said initial reports indicated that at least two rockets struck the Green Zone, but it said it could not give more details.

    Karradah has been the site of several past bombings, including one on Tuesday that killed four people and wounded seven.

    Ambulances raced from the scene, at least one with the back door still open and bodies stacked in the back, according to AP Television News footage. Smoke rose above the date palm trees lining the streets.

    The explosion destroyed three minivans, 11 cars and dozens of shops as well as the neighborhood's post office, according to a resident.