On January 9, 2005, a 27-man team of Kazakh sappers from the Kazbat engineer battalion collected 35 aerial bombs that Iraqi police had found stashed near the central military base of Al-Suwaira, located 6 miles south of Baghdad. The bombs were loaded onto transport trucks from where they would be defused at the Al-Suwaira

Multinational Division Central-South Multinational Division Central-South (MND-CS), created in September 2003, and supported by NATO, was a part of the Multinational Force Iraq. Headquartered in Camp Echo, it was under Polish command until October 2008, when the last of Poland's tr ...

army base. At 12:05 a.m, the trucks reached the base and a Ukrainian back-up team from the 72nd separate mechanised brigade assisted the sappers in unloading the explosives from the transport vehicles. While this was happening an explosive rigged between two of the aerial bombs detonated itself, caused a mass explosion that killed 8 Ukrainian troops and a Kazakh sapper, while also wounding 10 others of varying degrees, including 6 Ukrainians and 4 Kazakhs. Among the dead was a 52nd Battalion Ukrainian

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

. Following the incident, the

Islamic Army in Iraq The Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI) ( ar, الجيش الإسلامي في العراق ''al jaysh al islāmi fī'l-`irāq'') was one of a number of underground Islamist militant (or ''mujahideen'') organizations formed in Iraq following the 2003 invas ...

claimed responsibility for the explosion. According to the Ukrainian contingent commander in Iraq, Major General Serhiy Popko, there were reports of men sitting in a car and surveying the troops unload the charges before the blast, and then quickly speeding away afterwards. This caused speculation as to whether the IED was triggered remotely. In reaction to the deaths, Ukrainian president

Leonid Kuchma Leonid Danylovych Kuchma ( uk, Леоні́д Дани́лович Ку́чма; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. Kuchma's presidency saw numerous corrup ...

called for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. This was the primary cause that led to the direct pullout of 1,650 Ukrainian troops in December 2005. The Kazakh mission pulled out in 2008, suffering its sole fatality.

References

{{coord missing, Iraq Bombings in the Iraqi insurgency Iraq War Mass murder in 2005 Conflicts in 2005 January 2005 events in Asia