Two US Generals and Iraqi General survive suicide bomber

Close call

Senior leaders’ MRAP is destroyed by suicide bomb, but they survive
By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Nov 22, 2008 8:05:14 EST

Two U.S. generals and an Iraqi general survived an Aug. 24 suicide car bomb attack that destroyed the armored vehicle in which they were riding.

The attack occurred as a convoy rolled out of Forward Operating Base Marez on the edge of Mosul, said Multi-National Division-North spokesman Maj. Dan Meyers. “They had just left the base,” he said.

The bomber aimed his car, packed with 800 pounds of explosives, at a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle carrying Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, and Brig. Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas, assistant division commander for support of Multi-National Division-North. Also riding in the vehicle were an Iraqi general, a linguist and the MRAP crew, said MNSTC-I spokesman Col. Steven Wujciak, who added that he did not know the Iraqi general’s name.

The generals were on what Wujciak called “a normal battlefield circulation,” a phrase the military uses when senior leaders tour their areas of operations, visiting troops. Although the blast destroyed the vehicle and left a crater five feet deep and 10 feet wide, none of the vehicle’s occupants was seriously hurt, he said.

Thanks to the MRAP’s protection, the only casualty of the attack was the suicide bomber.
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