24 dead in attack on U.S. base in Iraq

Islamist Web sites post group's claim of responsibility

MOSUL, Iraq (CNN) -- A lunchtime attack on a U.S. military mess hall in northern Iraq on Tuesday killed 24 people, including Americans and Iraqis, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings at Camp Marez.

Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul, said the attack -- a large, single explosion -- wounded more than 60 people.

The dead include U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign contractors and members of the Iraqi army, Ham said.

A breakdown of the casualties was not immediately available, and Ham said the incident was being investigated.

Jeremy Redmon, a Richmond, Virginia, Times-Dispatch reporter embedded with troops at the base, said the attack "knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats," The Associated Press reported.

Members of the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion were among hundreds of people inside the tent, according to the AP.

Islamist Web sites posted a claim of responsibility from a group calling itself Jaish Ansar Al-Sunnah for an attack on "a joint US-Iraqi Ghazlani camp near Mosul at 12 noon Tuesday 21/12/2004." The Associated Press said local Iraqis refer to the camp similarly.

The message said that after the attack, "two helicopters were on the scene to airlift the killed and wounded." The message said the group shot video of the operation to be released later.

Personnel who have visited the base said the dining area is a tent-like facility with no hardened protection -- and that soldiers had specifically raised concerns that they could be targeted by insurgents at meal time.

One had told journalists that ‘it was only a matter of time before there was an attack on the mess hall.’

Lt. Col. Hastings said: "There is a level of vulnerability when you go in there, and you don't feel like there's a hard roof over your head. And when there's mortar attacks and explosions that happen, there is a level of vulnerability."

Overall the base has good protection, Hastings said, and a new dining facility is under construction.

Pentagon officials said about 8,500 U.S. troops are in the Mosul area, 3,500 of them from a Stryker Brigade based in Fort Lewis, Washington.

Mosul has been a site of repeated attacks in recent weeks. When the U.S. military launched a major offensive in Falluja in November, there was concern some insurgents had fled to Mosul and would launch attacks from there. The U.S. military recently conducted an offensive to try to flush out insurgents in Mosul, but the violence has continued.

Tuesday's attack came shortly after British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Baghdad on a surprise visit to Iraq.

During a news conference with Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Blair called the insurgency "a battle between democracy and terror," in advance of Iraqi elections set for January 30.

Iraqi voters are expected to choose a 275-member transitional national assembly. That body will put together a permanent constitution that will go before voters in a referendum. If the law is approved, there will be elections for a permanent government by the end of next year.

On Sunday, nearly 70 people died in car bomb attacks in the Shiite Muslim holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

Other developments

The French Foreign Ministry has confirmed that two French journalists held hostage by an Iraqi insurgency group since August have been released. A group known as the Islamic Army in Iraq said Tuesday it had delivered the two to the French Embassy in Baghdad, the Arab-language television network Al-Jazeera reported.

Karl Penhaul in Baghdad and Elaine Quijano and Mike Mount at the Pentagon contributed to this report.