Gunman Who Shot Marine in Baghdad Was Syrian, U.S. Says

[thedrifter]

Gunman Who Shot Marine in Baghdad Was Syrian, U.S. Says
Sat April 12, 2003 09:26 PM ET
AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar (Reuters) - A gunman who shot dead a U.S. Marine guarding a hospital in Baghdad on Saturday was a Syrian, U.S. Central Command said on Sunday.
The Marine, from the First Marine Expeditionary Force, was manning a checkpoint outside the hospital when he was approached by two men posing as landscape workers, one of whom opened fire and killed him, a Central Command statement said.

Marines nearby shot and killed the gunman, who was found to have a Syrian identification card, the statement said. A spokesman at Central Command later said U.S. forces were satisfied he was a Syrian. The second attacker fled.

The incident was apparently the same one that a Marine officer in Baghdad said on Saturday had taken place outside a hospital near the Palestine Hotel, home to foreign media. But the officer did not disclose the nationality of the attacker.

Central Command withheld the identity of the dead Marine until next of kin were notified.

The government of Saddam Hussein said before it was toppled earlier this week that thousands of volunteers from across the Arab world had arrived to help fight the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that began on March 20.

U.S. forces said on Saturday they had seized one of the last remaining strongholds of the Arab "mujahideen" fighters in Baghdad.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said on Saturday U.S. accusations that Damascus had helped Saddam's Iraq were baseless and challenged Washington to provide evidence.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said the United States would hold Syria accountable for reported shipments of military equipment, including night vision goggles, to Iraq, calling them "hostile acts."

Sempers,

Roger