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Roadside bombs wound 2 U.S. troops in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-21 18:58
Roadside bombs exploded near three U.S. convoys in and around Baghdad on
Wednesday, wounding two soldiers, an official said. The attacks came one day
after the death toll for U.S. forces rose to more than 1,900 since the Iraq
invasion.
In the southern city of Basra, two Iraqi citizens who were wounded in clashes
between British forces and Iraqi police died in a hospital Wednesday, raising
the civilian death toll to five, police said. The fighting occurred Monday when
British forces stormed a Basra jail to free two British soldiers who had been
arrested by Basra police.
During the raid, British forces learned that Shiite Muslim militiamen and
police had just moved the two men to a nearby house. The British then stormed
that house and rescued the men. Since then, British and Iraqi officials have
criticized each other about attack, and police gathered on Wednesday morning to
stage a protest against British forces.
In the worst attack on U.S. forces Wednesday, a roadside bomb exploded as a
U.S. military convoy drove through the Abu Ghraib area on the western outskirts
of Baghdad, leaving two soldiers with minor wounds, said U.S. Lt. Jamie Davis, a
spokesman for the U.S. army.
Iraqi police 1st Lt. Mohammed Khayon said the U.S. forces then opened fire on
people in the area, wounding an Iraqi civilian, but Davis couldn't confirm that.
Roadside bombs also exploded Wednesday near two other U.S. convoys in
southwestern Baghdad and in the Taji area north of the capital. No soldiers were
wounded, Davis said.
Mechanical problems forced a U.S. Army Apache helicopter to make an emergency
landing about 30 miles outside the northern city of Mosul. No one was injured.
On Monday, a Diplomatic Security agent attached to the State Department and
three private American security guards were killed when their convoy was hit by
a suicide car bomber in Mosul, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said. The four were
attached to the U.S. Embassy's regional office in Mosul.
Names of the victims were not released in Baghdad, but Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, in a statement issued in New York, identified the Diplomatic
Security officer as Stephen Eric Sullivan. His age and address were not given.
The latest American deaths, which raised the overall toll to 1,907, also
included a soldier from the 18th Military Police Brigade killed in a roadside
bombing 75 miles north of the capital Tuesday, the military said.
On Monday, four soldiers attached to the U.S. Marines died in two roadside
bombings near the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. They
were attached to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.
Three soldiers died Friday, but their deaths weren't announced until Tuesday.
In Basra, British and Iraqi forces continued to disagree about what had
happened there.
British Defense Minister John Reid said his forces in the southern city,
where most British forces in Iraq are based, were "absolutely right" to act. But
a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said the operation was
"very unfortunate."
Britain's Foreign Office later released a statement it said was from
al-Jaafari's office, insisting there is no crisis in relations between the two
countries.
After British armored vehicles stormed the jail to free two commandos,
Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a Shiite who serves as Iraq's national security adviser,
said the operation was "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty."
British forces used armor to bash their way into the jail compound late
Monday after a day of turmoil that erupted with the arrest of the two commandos.
At first, Basra police said the men shot and killed a policeman, but on
Tuesday the al-Jaafari spokesman, Haydar al-Abadi, said the men — who were
wearing civilian clothes — were grabbed for behaving suspiciously and collecting
information.
The British said the men had been handed over to a militia. The Basra
governor confirmed the claim, saying the Britons were in the custody of the
al-Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
"The two British were being kept in a house controlled by militiamen when the
rescue operation took place," said the governor, Mohammed al-Waili.
"Police who are members of the militia group took them to a nearby house
after jail authorities learned the facility was about to be stormed," he said,
demanding that the Britons be handed over to local authorities for trial. He
would not say what charges they might face.
Officials in Basra, refusing to be named because they feared for their lives,
said at least 60 percent of the police force there is made up of Shiite
militiamen from one of three groups: the Mahdi Army; the Badr Brigade, the armed
wing of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution; and Hezbollah in Iraq, a
small group based in the marshlands in the south.
All militia have deep historical, religious and political ties to Iran, where
many Shiite political and religious figures took refuge during the rule of
Saddam Hussein.
While about 135,000 U.S. troops operate throughout Iraq, the 8,500 British
forces are headquartered in the Basra region.
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