US soldiers killed in Iraq

Two soldiers were killed and six wounded in the bloodiest day yet for US occupation troops in Iraq since President George Bush announced the end of major combat at the start of May.

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The latest attack on US troops
is the third such incident in two days

One soldier died and three were wounded in what appeared to be an ambush near Baghdad on Monday evening, according to the military and witnesses.

 

“An RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) could not have done this… it must have been a landmine,” said a US soldier who was travelling in the convoy, along the Amiriyah highway in western Baghdad. US troops, backed by tanks, sealed off the scene.

 

“We removed the three before secondary explosions (from the ammunition in the vehicle) occurred,” said Private Enriqe Alverado, who was in a vehicle behind the one that was hit.

 

The Aljazeera correspondent on the scene, Faiza al-Izi, said that the explosion appears to have been “intentional… as the landmine exploded on the highway.”

 

“The Americans have been wary in dealing with us. Some of them were scared and one told us that he wanted to go back to his home which he missed.”

 

Residents in the neighbourhood lined the road looking at the destroyed vehicle.

   

“They deserved it and they deserve more. They are occupiers, not liberators,” said Ali Abbas, a resident of Amiriyah.

 

Aljazeera’s correspondent in Baghdad, Abdulhaq Sadah, said that there were “many explosions yesterday evening”.

 

“At first, we thought they were related to ammunition-clearing but later we discovered they were an outbreak of spontaneous resistance.”

 

Another attack

 

The American fatality occurred early Monday in Hadithah, a town about 190 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, when an eight-vehicle convoy of the Third Armoured Cavalry Regiment was attacked while on a re-supply mission.

 

A statement from US Central Command said one soldier was killed and another wounded  .

 

It was the second death of an American soldier in two days, after a soldier died Sunday in an accidental munitions dump explosion near the town of Diwaniya, 150 kilometers south of Baghdad.

 

Late Sunday, attackers threw grenades at US military police in Baqubah, 45 miles (70 kilometres) northeast of the capital. Soldiers looking for the attackers were approached by an Iraqi woman with her hands at her waist, the US Central Command said.

 

She was told to stop and then a warning shot was fired when she continued, and the soldiers shot her. She dropped one grenade but kept crawling towards them and was shot again and killed, the statement said. The troops found another grenade on her body.