Ambushes Against U.S. Troops Kill 4

AP ^ | Jun 26, 6:56 AM (ET) | NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD

[Destro]

Jun 26, 6:56 AM (ET)

Ambushes Against U.S. Troops Kill 4

By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Assailants launched a wave of ambushes against U.S. forces in Iraq, dropping grenades from an overpass, blowing up a vehicle with a roadside bomb and destroying a civilian SUV traveling with U.S. troops, soldiers and Iraqi police said Thursday. Two U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civilians were killed.

The onslaught was part of a spiraling series of attacks on coalition forces despite assurances that the troops are mopping up resistance. On Tuesday, six British soldiers were killed in a southern town, undercoring the spread of anti-coalition violence.

In latest wave of attacks, a bomb exploded Thursday by a U.S. military vehicle on the road leading to Baghdad's airport, killing one U.S. soldier and injuring another.

The airport road, heavily used by U.S. forces, has been the scene of a series of ambushes using trip wires dangling from overpasses or grenades tossed from bridges. Last month, two U.S. soldiers were killed and two injured when a Humvee detonated an anti-tank mine hidden under debris on the highway.

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

Top Stories - Reuters

U.S. Special Forces Soldier Killed in Baghdad
4 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One American special forces soldier was killed and eight others wounded on Thursday by hostile fire in southwestern Baghdad, the U.S. military said.



In a statement, the U.S. Central Command did not describe the circumstances under which the American troops came under fire.


It marked the latest in a spate of incidents in which American and British soldiers have been killed in hostilities in postwar Iraq (news - web sites).


U.S. officials have blamed the recent attacks on loyalists to toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

[Prodigal Son]

Rest of article (they get gone sometimes)

---

On Wednesday afternoon, ambushers dropped grenades from a Baghdad overpass onto a passing convoy of Army Humvees, said Marine Corps Maj. Sean Gibson. There were no serious injuries.

In Hilla, 45 miles south of Baghdad, three Marines were wounded Wednesday in an ambush, a U.S. military statement said. One Marine was killed and two were injured when their vehicle - part of a quick reaction force dispatched in response to the ambush - rolled over on the soft shoulder on the way to the scene.

On Thursday, two Iraqi employees of the national electricity authority were killed when their U.S.-led convoy came under a grenade attack in west Baghdad, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police said.

The convoy included U.S. Humvees at the front and the back and two Iraqi civilian vehicles in the middle. The soldiers and Iraqi police said the two Iraqis who were killed were traveling in the same car.

U.S. troops evacuated the two bodies from the badly damaged vehicle, which was covered with blood and broken glass.


(AP) A British soldier checks cars entering Basra's airport in southern Iraq, Wednesday, June 25, 2003....
Full Image

None of the names of the injured or killed Americans were available.

At least 19 U.S. soldiers have died in hostile fire since major combat was officially declared over in May.

On Tuesday, six British soldiers were killed in southern Iraq during a shooting rampage by townspeople furious over the killing of four neighbors during a demonstration, apparently at the hands of British troops.

That attack, in the town of Majar al-Kabir, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, had shattered the peace that had reigned in Shiite-dominated southern Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein - and spurred British authorities to consider requiring troops to wear body armor and helmets.

On Thursday, 11 pickup trucks filled with armed men from the local security force patrolled the city on their own, with no British troops in the town center.

Recent attacks on U.S. forces near Baghdad have been blamed on remnants of Saddam's regime or his Sunni followers, but the Majar al-Kabir attack came in the mostly Shiite south, where resentment toward Saddam Hussein's government had been strong.

The Shiite gunmen were enraged by the death of their neighbors - allegedly at the hands of British troops during a demonstration earlier in the day - and over weapons searches in homes with women.

On Tuesday, about 100 residents protested the British weapons sweeps in a four-hour demonstration outside the mayor's office, where a dozen British troops were posted, witnesses said. Protesters threw rocks, and British troops fired back with rubber bullets before switching to live ammunition, the witnesses said.

Local police said four Iraqis were killed, and that armed residents then killed two British military policemen. Then, witnesses said, some Iraqis went to their homes to get weapons. At least 20 armed Iraqis stormed the police station, where four British military police were located along with Iraqi policemen.

British forces in Iraq have been reduced from 45,000 during the war to 15,500 now, two-thirds of them ground forces. The United States has brought home some 130,000 troops from the region; 146,000 American forces remain in Iraq.

[Captain Kirk]

Your fooling yourself if think capturing one or two men will stop this. The Shi'ites who killed the Brits in the South, for example, owned no loyalty to Saddam.

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

Would it matter?

[Lijahsbubbe]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your reply!(duh)

[RusIvan]

Now it is you emotinal just like arabs. So you may understand what they feel constantly.

It is just like Chechya or Kosovo out in Iraq. Accually it is still smaller then them. But you may realise why serbs and russians did what they did.

[DoctorMichael]

What make you think Arabs want democracy?

I have heard this from time to time from some Arabs (albeit a minority) on the news.

20 Arab countries, not one with democracy...get point?

I do, and it makes me sad that this portion of humanity (or at least their LEADERS) wants to wallow in medieval ignorance.

[Im Your Huckleberry]

No, a Roman Emperor from about 5 B.C.

You want to know his name?

[Im Your Huckleberry]

Yes, it makes me emotional. It makes me emotional to see my countrymen brutally slain by an unruly, ungrateful mob of barbarians.

I completely understand the Russians taking whatever steps, or measures, needed to deal with their own problems with the Chechnyans.

Absolutely.

The problem with Islamofascism is never going to be solved with "peace and understanding". Never.

[RussianConservative]

If people not support them then they not stay in power. Look what happen when they get independence...they go to what natural for culture: autocracy religious or not but autocracy.

[Rummyfan]

I vote for the second option.

[berserker]

An Iraqi civilian car, riddled with shrapnel holes, stands in front of an undamaged U.S. army vehicle after an attack in the Amiriyah neighborhood near the Baghdad airport, June 26, 2003. Witnesses said a Humvee military car was hit in the attack and that an Iraqi civilian car carrying electricity workers was also damaged in the attack, with one occupant killed and another badly wounded. (Akram Saleh/Reuters)

[singsong]

Chinese Red Army comes to our rescue

It all depends on the conditions "before" and "after". The US army is putting Iraq in order after a ruthless dictator. If we allowed somebody like him to come to power here, it would be entirely our fault. It doesn't matter who would come next, does it! So get busy thinking how to prevent it, not who will come to save you in the morning "after"!