IRAQ: SMALL MEMORIAL CEREMONY HELD IN BASRA FOR DANISH SOLDIER KILLED RECENT GUN BATTLE IN SOUTHERN IRAQ
Record ID:
648499
IRAQ: SMALL MEMORIAL CEREMONY HELD IN BASRA FOR DANISH SOLDIER KILLED RECENT GUN BATTLE IN SOUTHERN IRAQ
- Title: IRAQ: SMALL MEMORIAL CEREMONY HELD IN BASRA FOR DANISH SOLDIER KILLED RECENT GUN BATTLE IN SOUTHERN IRAQ
- Date: 18th August 2003
- Summary: BASRA, IRAQ (AUGUST 18, 2003) (REUTERS) (DUSK SHOTS) 1. WS: BASRAH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT EXTERIOR 0.06 2. VARIOUS OF ROYAL DANISH AIRFORCE PLANE ON THE TARMAC (2 SHOTS) 0.14 3. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Danish) NIELS BUNDSGAARD, COMMANDER OF THE DANISH FORCES IN IRAQ SAYING: "Today we have a ceremony because we have a dead soldier whom we want to bring home. He died on Saturday and we had a small ceremony and now we will say goodbye to a good soldier and a good corporal." 0.26 (SOME SHOTS BELOW SLIGHTLY OUT OF FOCUS DUE TO LOW LIGHT LEVELS) 4. WS/SLV: DANISH SOLDIERS CARRYING COFFIN OF LANCE CORPORAL PREBEN PEDERSEN CLOSER TO PLANE DURING CEREMONY (2 SHOTS) 0.51 5. MV: DANISH SOLDIERS IN LINE WITH FLAG 1.00 6. VARIOUS OF DANISH SOLDIERS DURING CEREMONY AND CARRYING COFFIN INTO PLANE (4 SHOTS) 1.38 7. LV: LINE OF SOLDIERS WATCHING 1.42 8. SLV: PLANE CLOSES HATCH 2.03 9. LV'S: PLANE TAXIING; TAKES OFF (2 SHOTS) 2.21 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 2nd September 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BASRA, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVADJYJMRJQHSTHYCD2YKFS3JRAQ
- Story Text: Small ceremony for Danish soldier killed in southern Iraq on
Saturday.
Danish Coalition troops held a small memorial
ceremony on Monday (August 18) for a Danish soldier killed
at the weekend in a gun battle between troops and a group
of looters stealing power cables.
Thirty-four-year-old Lance Corporal Preben Pedersen was
on routine patrol west of Basra on Saturday evening (August
16) and tried to arrest eight people said to have been
looting copper cables. Shots were fired and in the ensuing
gun battle one soldier and two of the Iraqis were killed.
Niels Bundsgaard, Commander of the Danish Forces In
Iraq said,
"Today we have a ceremony because we have a dead
soldier whom we want to bring home. He died on Saturday and
we had a small ceremony and now we will say goodbye to a
good soldier and a good corporal."
The Danish death was the first fatality of a coalition
soldier from a country other than the United States or
Britain since the start of the U.S.-led war that toppled
Saddam Hussein.
A Danish spokesman, quoting Danes from the patrol who
had been questioned by a Danish investigator, said Pedersen
might have been killed accidentally by one of his comrades.
Denmark supported the U.S.-led war - a decision that
split both politicians and the people - and provided a
submarine and a ship and now has 420 Danish troops
stationed in southern Iraq, part of a multinational force
in the area.
The Danish forces include a light infantry unit,
medical staff and a mine clearance unit. British soldiers
are responsible for policing Basra and surrounding towns.
Defence Minister Svend Aage Jensby told Danish
television Pedersen's death would not prompt Denmark to
bring its troops home, recalling no troops were brought
home after three Danish soldiers died in Afghanistan in
March last year.
Urging the United Nations to take a more central role
in Iraq from now on, he said he expected the need for
military presence in Iraq to remain.
Most attacks on occupying troops in Iraq have been
concentrated in Baghdad and Sunni Muslim areas north and
west of the Iraqi capital, but this month violence has also
erupted in parts of mainly Shi'ite southern Iraq.
A British soldier was killed and two were wounded on
Thursday when explosives concealed in a Basra lamppost were
detonated as a military ambulance drove past.
Rampant looting of copper cables in southern Iraq is
one of the causes of a power crisis in the region that
sparked violent protests in Basra last weekend.
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