Have we thrown Poland under the Bus?

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen launched simultaneous mortar and machinegun attacks on two mainly Polish military bases in southern Iraq on Monday, after Shi'ite militants vowed to step up pressure on Polish soldiers to force them out.

An official at a hospital in Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, said two children under the age of 10 had been killed in the mortar attack and three -- a 15-year-old and two 17-year-olds -- had been shot dead.

On Sunday Reuters obtained a copy of a video in which two previously unknown Shi'ite groups claimed responsibility for recent attacks on Poland's ambassador and its embassy and warned Polish troops to leave Iraq "before you drown in its swamp."

About 900 Polish troops, part of the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq, are based in Qadisiya province to support the 8th Iraqi Army division and train Iraqi soldiers and police.

In Monday's attack, gunmen fired mortars and machineguns at a base manned by Polish and Iraqi soldiers in Iskan, a southwestern neighborhood of Diwaniya, the provincial capital, killing four civilians and wounding 17, Polish military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Wlodek Glogowski told Reuters.

Glogowski had no details of the casualties but said they were hit by the attacking militants, not when troops returned fire. Three gunmen had also been killed, he said.

It was not clear how the children became victims of the attack, but there are many homes near the base.

The Polish troops in Iraq have been getting hammere relentlessly since the assassination attempt on the Polish Ambassador to Iraq. I don't understand why we don't have any of our surge troops there backing them up. Did we forget Poland?


-Diane