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3 U.S. Soldiers Killed, 6 Wounded In Iraq Attacks
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A U.S. soldier chases away Iraqi children in Baghdad
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BAGHDAD,
February 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Capping a bloody
24 hours for the U.S.-led occupation forces, the American occupation
army confirmed Tuesday, February 17, the killing of three soldiers and
the wounding of six others in separate attacks across Iraq.
An
American soldier was killed and another wounded when a bomb exploded
as their convoy passed on a road in northern Iraq late Monday,
February 16, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"A
Task Force Olympia soldier was killed and one other was wounded when
their convoy was attacked by an improvised explosive device" near
Tall Afar, west of Mosul, the U.S. military confirmed Tuesday.
Earlier
Monday, two U.S. soldiers were killed and five others wounded in
separate roadside bomb blasts within an hour of each other in Baghdad
and the northeastern city of Baquba.
According
to Pentagon figures, Iraqi resistance attacks have claimed the lives
of 261 U.S. soldiers since U.S. President George W. Bush declared
major combat in Iraq over on May 1.
Children
Killed
Two
children were killed and four others wounded Monday at a Baghdad
primary school when students lit a fire in a trash bin, accidentally
setting off a grenade inside, Iraqi police said.
The
explosion shook the Asmaa school in the district of Kadhamiyah, said
General Raad al-Nuaimi.
Police
sergeant Abdelamir Hamid said the explosion was accidental.
"The
grenade, which seems to have been there for a long time, exploded when
students started a fire in a trash bin in a corner of the
schoolyard," he said.
However,
U.S. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt claimed the blast was caused by a
crude bomb.
Suspected
Assassins
In
another development, Iraq's deputy interior minister Ahmed Ibrahim
confirmed Tuesday that five men were arrested over the weekend in
connection with the murder last year of Governing Council member Akila
al-Hashemi.
He
told reporters that police were holding five men, allegedly former
members of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia, implicated in Hashimi's
death and other plots against Governing Council members.
Hashemi,
a foreign ministry official appointed in July 2003 to the Governing
Council, was hit by three bullets as she left her Baghdad home on
September 20, and she died
five days later from her wounds.
Separately,
Iraq's trade minister said one of his top civil servants was shot dead
outside his home last Wednesday in an apparent political
assassination.
Hussein
Abdul Fattah, the trade ministry's deputy director general for
administration, was gunned down as his car pulled out on the street,
Ali Allawi told AFP.
Spare
Police
A
group claiming to represent resistance in Fallujah denied involvement
in an attack that killed
25 people, including policemen, Saturday, February 15, and called
for a halt to all attacks on Iraqi security forces.
The
"Mujahedeen of Fallujah" said it has decided "to stop
all attacks against policemen," in leaflets circulated in the
town, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad.
A
spat of attacks on members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi police force
claimed scores of innocent lives.
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