Thursday, November 30 2006 @ 08:01 AM MST
Contributed by: tomw
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 Warsaw Voice -- One Polish soldier died and one was injured in a booby-trap mine attack by Iraqi insurgents Nov. 11. This is the 22nd Polish fatality since Polish troops joined the United States-led Iraq campaign.
The attack took place when a Slovak engineering company was returning to the Delta base from a mission defusing mines in an old arms and munitions dump near Al Kut, in Wasit province. The explosion completely destroyed the Hummer vehicle in which the soldiers were traveling. The convoy was then sprayed with machine gun fire.
 Sergeant Tomasz Murkowski, 30, who served in the 13th anti-aircraft regiment in Elbląg, was killed instantly, as was his Slovak colleague Sergeant Rastislav Neplech. Two other soldiers, a Pole and an Armenian, were injured. They were transported by helicopter to a hospital in Baghdad. The Pole, a warrant officer from an air base in Malbork, suffered a leg injury.
"In connection with the attack, a special operational group was formed with the task of detecting and apprehending the perpetrators," said Zbigniew Tuszyński, spokesman for the 16th Pomeranian Mechanized Division in Elbląg.
During Independence Day celebrations in Poland, President Lech Kaczyński posthumously awarded Murkowski with the recently established Military Cross Order. Granted for the first time, the distinction is presented to outstanding soldiers for service in foreign missions. In a statement, Kaczyński stressed the important role of the Polish military in stabilization missions in such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Bosnia. "Nothing threatens our borders today, but our army is still present on battlefields," he said.
Murkowski is the 22nd Polish death in Iraq. Previous fatalities have included 17 soldiers, two former GROM commandos working for the American security firm Blackwater, and two Polish television TVP journalists, Waldemar Milewicz and Mounir Bouamrane.
The official end of the Polish military contingent's mission in Iraq, currently about 900 soldiers, is Dec. 31. However, it cannot be ruled out that the mission will be extended. A formal decision has not yet been taken. After Jan. 1, a group of about 1,200 Polish soldiers is to be dispatched on a mission in Afghanistan. |
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