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Three U.S. Soldiers Killed In New Iraq Ambush
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US army truck burns following an ambush in the town of Khaldiyah
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BAGHDAD,
September 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Three U.S.
soldiers were killed and two wounded late Thursday, September 18, in
an ambush near the Iraqi town of Tikrit, hours after 8 soldiers were
reportedly killed in an attack on an American convoy in the town of
Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad.
Corporal
Vernon O'Donnell, of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, said the troops
came under small-arms fire eight kilometers (five miles) south of the
central town of Tikrit, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"They
were inspecting a suspected mortar launch site when the ambush
occurred," O'Donnell told AFP, adding that the toll was three
dead and two wounded.
The
clash between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm (1800-1900 GMT) capped a day of
assaults on U.S. occupation forces, including a bomb and
rocket-propelled grenade attack on a convoy west of Baghdad that
witnesses said left heavy U.S. casualties.
The
U.S.-led occupation took a blow on another front Thursday as a fire
erupted at an oil pipeline north of Baghdad. US officials could not
confirm whether it was a new act of sabotage.
The
attacks came amid high tensions in the region, with U.S. troops shooting
dead a teenager and wounding six other people late Wednesday,
September 17, in Fallujah while they were celebrating a wedding.
On
Saturday, September 13, the U.S. military issued an ‘apology’
after nine security guards from Fallujah were killed
the previous day when U.S. troops opened fire as the guards were
chasing thieves.
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An
Iraqi fireman directs a front-end as they push sand onto an oil
pipeline fire in Baji 38 kilometers from Tikrit
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The
attacks also came after Wednesday's release of a new audiotape in
which a man identified as Saddam exhorted Iraqis to step up their
resistance and warned U.S. troops to quit the country.
Some
200-300 Iraqis took to the streets of the town of Khaldiyah, 80
kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad, to exult in the attack on the
American convoy and pledge allegiance to former Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein.
No
full, official toll was available from the mid-afternoon incident
Thursday in Khaldiyah, but the witnesses reported seeing between four
and eight badly burned U.S. soldiers pulled out of one military
vehicle engulfed in flames.
Dubai-based
Al-Arabiya television said in an unconfirmed report that eight
Americans were killed
when the convoy hit a roadside bomb and was pelted with
rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) as its limped to a nearby base.
The
U.S. military would not confirm accounts of heavy casualties but said
two soldiers were wounded and three vehicles damaged by a bomb and
small-arms fire near the town of Ramadi west of Khaldiyah.
U.S.
soldiers also shot up a car belonging to the U.S. news agency
Associated Press when its reporters tried to film a burning vehicle in
Khaldiyah, the AP staffers said. The two reporters and driver, all
Iraqis, were unhurt.
Witnesses
said the attack was triggered by a bomb that went off underneath an
American vehicle, setting it afire with about 10 U.S. soldiers inside.
Local
resident Mahmud Ali saw eight burned troops taken from the bombed
vehicle hit while the convoy was passing through Khaldiyah en route
from the town of Fallujah toward Ramadi.
Yusuf
Ali, 40, no relation, said he saw four victims.
The
Americans tried to seal off the road and call in reinforcements but
the convoy was hit at least twice by RPGs as it continued on its way.
Other
attacks Thursday targeted U.S. forces as far north as the city of
Mosul, 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Baghdad. But only two people
were reported wounded slightly in these other incidents.
The
five-month-old U.S.-led occupation of Iraq
has been plagued by attacks on infrastructure as well as occupation
troops, and officials were investigating a fire that erupted Thursday
at a pipeline near the oil hub of Baiji.
"We
have not established if it was sabotage or not," Lieutenant
General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq,
said of the blaze about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Baghdad.
The
pipeline linking the oil center of Kirkuk further to the north with
the Baiji refinery carries most of the oil that is exported to the
Turkish port of Ceyhan.
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