Falluja attack against US soldiers
Several US soldiers were reported injured in a twin attack in the Iraqi town of Fallujah late on Thursday night, hours after another attack killed a soldier in Baghdad.
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Despite US sweeps, resistance |
The French news agency AFP reported that simultaenous attacks were launched at US soldiers guarding a power station and a government building in Fallujah, resulting in several US casualties.
Quoting witnesses, the agency said attackers fired rocket propelled grenades at the power plant, setting off loud explosions.
Another rocket propelled grenade hit a government office and set ablaze a US armoured carrier. The US soldiers fired back, but locals said the attackers fled in the darkness.
The attacks in Fallujah followed an ambush of a US military convoy in Al-Iskandariya to the south of Baghdad earlier during the day.
A US army medic was killed and two soldiers wounded in the attack.
Eyewitnesses told Aljazeera that armed men attacked a US military convoy when it came to a halt.
A US military spokesman said a rocket-propelled grenade hit a US ambulance, killing one soldier and injuring two others.
Rising casualties
The latest deaths brought to 52 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared the war in Iraq effectively over on 1 May.
The Pentagon says a total of 91 have been killed since the fall of Baghdad on 9 April, inching closer to the 102 US troops killed in the war to control Iraq.
Attacks on US soldiers are being reported almost daily.
One US soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting on Wednesday as he guarded a petrol station in central Baghdad. The attack came after US troops opened fire on former Iraqi soldiers demonstrating in the capital, killing two protesters and injuring two others.
US military officials however, insisted that there was no cause for concern, saying the resistance attacks were “militarily insignificant” and “ineffective”.
Mass grave
Meanwhile, a mass grave containing the remains of some 150 Iraqi Kurds was discovered during the day in the oil-rich town of Kirkuk in northern Iraq.
Officials said most of the 150 civilians had gone missing during the anti-Kurd campaign waged by ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein between 1988-89.
Only a day earlier, on Wednesday, the remains of 35 missing Kurds were discovered in another mass grave near the town of Mosul.