News 2020

All the breaking news - fifteen years before events come together

Violence exploded today in the Democratic Republic of Baghdad when a missile fired from a crude mortar killed one American soldier and seven other coalition personnel from nations of no particular consequence. No Britons were hurt.

The soldier's death brings to 219 the number of casualties inside the Democratic Republic, and was condemned as "a barbarous and despicable murder" by the US Secretary of State. The British Foreign Office issued a statement saying the attack was "a considerable disappointment".

The attack is the forty-seventh this year within the borders of the Democratic Republic, and is thought to be intended as a reprisal for recent liberatory activities by Allied forces in the region.

Insurgent groups in Iraq have a long history of greeting Allied attempts to end the conflict with renewed violence. Three months ago, the attempt by US forces to finally cleanse Mosul of terrorism, Operation Tough Love, was condemned by militants who claimed that the Americans had inflicted excessive civilian casualties.

Similarly, the attempt to expunge the cancer of terrorism from the rat-runs of Basra, Operation Paternal Remonstrance, garnered angry reactions from the Islamic fundamentalist militiamen and foreign fighters who infest the country.

Both the British and the American governments were united this evening in refusing to allow the latest tragedy in Baghdad to deter them from their focus on the goal of finally winning the peace in the region.

"If there is one thing that should be clear to all parties in the Middle East by this time," the Foreign Office said, "it is that soldiers have the right to go about their business without risking life and limb at the hands of armed enemies. And we will not stop fighting till this right is respected."