Military opens up on sneak attack

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated attack in four years of warfare, gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers last week at the provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Karbala and then shot them to death.

The U.S. military confirmed a report earlier Friday by The Associated Press that three of the soldiers were dead and one was mortally wounded with a gunshot to the head when they were found in a neighboring province, about 25 miles from the compound where they were captured.

The Defense Department has released the names of servicemen killed Jan. 20 but clearly identified only one as being killed because of the sneak attack.

Capt. Brian Freeman, 31, of Temecula, Calif., whose mother lives in Utah, ''died of wounds suffered when his meeting area came under attack by mortar and small arms fire.''

The only other troops killed that day in that region of Iraq were four Army soldiers said to have been ''ambushed while conducting dismounted operations'' in Karbala.

The four were identified as 1st Lt. Jacob Fritz, 25, of Verdon, Neb.; Spc. Johnathan Chism, 22, of Prairieville, La.; Pfc. Shawn Falter, 25, of Homer, N.Y.; and Pvt. Johnathon Millican, 20, of Trafford, Ala.

The new account contradicted a U.S. military statement that five soldiers were killed ''repelling'' the attack.

In a statement issued late Friday, the military said two of the dead soldiers were found handcuffed together in the back seat of an SUV near the southern Iraqi town of Mahawil. A third dead soldier was on the ground nearby. The fourth soldier died on the way to the hospital.

The brazen assault, 50 miles south of Baghdad, was conducted by nine to 12 gunmen posing as an American security team, the military confirmed. The attackers traveled in black GMC Suburban vehicles - the type used by U.S. government convoys - had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues and spoke English, according to two senior U.S. military officials as well as Iraqi officials. One Iraqi official said the leader of the assault team was blond, but no other official confirmed that.

The Karbala raid, as explained by the Iraqi and American officials, began after nightfall on Jan. 20, while American military officers were meeting with their Iraqi counterparts on the main floor of the Provisional Joint Coordination Center in Karbala.

The attackers threw a grenade and opened fire with automatic rifles as they grabbed two soldiers inside the compound. Then the guerrilla assault team jumped on top of an armored U.S. Humvee and captured two more soldiers, the U.S. military officials said.

The attackers seized the four soldiers and an unclassified U.S. military computer and fled with them east toward Mahawil in Babil province, crossing the Euphrates River, the U.S. military officials said.

The Iraqi officials said the four were shot just before the vehicles were abandoned.

Police, who became suspicious when the convoy of attackers and their American captives did not stop at a roadblock, chased the vehicles and found the bodies, the gear and the abandoned SUVs.

Three days after the killings, the U.S. military in Baghdad announced the arrest of four suspects in the attack.

A senior Iraqi military official said the sophistication of the attack led him to believe it was the work of Iranian intelligence agents in conjunction with Iraq's Shiite Mahdi Army militia.