Aircrews Kill Attackers, Destroy Mortar Launching Site in Baghdad

American Forces Press Service

April 8, 2008 - An Army Apache helicopter and an Air Force F-16 took out a mortar-launching team and their launch site yesterday after an observation team saw them emplacing mortars in the New Baghdad district, military officials reported. A joint security station reported a mortar attack near its location in the New Baghdad district. After a second 82 mm round exploded near the station, an aerial surveillance team pinpointed the two mortars' point of origin.

Iraqi security forces called in a U.S. Army Apache air weapons team that killed the mortar crew with a Hellfire missile. An F-16 then dropped a low-yield bomb on the mortar site.

Also yesterday, an Apache team destroyed a storage site for rails used to launch rocket attacks. Forces observed insurgents recovering rails after a rocket attack. An aerial weapons team was called in for support. The crew destroyed the structure and the rails with a Hellfire missile.

In other news in Iraq, coalition forces seized a weapons cache yesterday in eastern Baghdad. Soldiers found a small cache of armor-piercing explosively formed penetrators while patrolling. The cache was recovered.

(Compiled from Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)