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Nine US Soldiers Killed in Iraq Attacks
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US
troops suffer daily casualties in Iraq, about 17 months after
occupying the country
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BAGHDAD,
September 6 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - At least seven US
marines were killed and several others wounded Monday, September 6, in
an ambush in western Baghdad, as the American military admitted two
other soldiers were slain in a separate attack.
A
US military convoy was attacked near the city of Fallujah, witnesses
and US military sources said.
A
correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the ground, quoting
witnesses at the scene of the ambush in the town of Saqlawiya on the
northern outskirts of Fallujah, said at least six marines were killed
and eight wounded.
US
military sources confirmed the toll and said more casualties were
feared.
Witnesses
reported seeing two US military vehicles ablaze after a loud
explosion, helicopters buzzed overhead. Marines blocked off the road.
"I
heard a very loud explosion I rushed to see what was going on. I saw
two Humvees on fire. Then a US helicopter came down to carry the
bodies and the wounded," said Othman Jabr, 28, from Saqlawiya.
Saqlawiya
has been a cauldron of anti-American sentiment, due to continued air
raids on residential areas.
Twenty
Iraqis, including three children were killed and six others injured
Wednesday, September 1, in a US air strike on two buildings in the
city.
The
deaths also included one woman and one elderly man after the raid on
the city, populated by 300,000.
In
April, at least 700 Iraqis, mostly
women and children, were killed and 1500 others injured when
the US occupation forces imposed a tight siege on Fallujah and
intensified air strikes on its densely-populated areas.
US
forces were stationed by Saqlawiya this spring and marines nicknamed
their outpost Camp Suicide because of the nightly mortar fire.
Two
More Casualties
Meanwhile,
the US forces said in a statement a mortar attack on an American base
near Baghdad Sunday killed two American soldiers and wounded 16.
It
said one of those wounded in the attack Sunday evening was in critical
condition.
Major
Richard Spiegel of the Army's 13th Corps Support Command was quoted by
the Associated Press as saying the mortar barrage hit the Logistical
Base Seitz, on Baghdad's western outskirts.
The
soldiers killed and wounded all belonged to the Army's 13th Corps
Support Command, which oversees distribution of military fuel, food,
water and other supplies to US forces across Iraq.
Also
Monday, a car bomb exploded outside an air base used by US forces near
Dijiel, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, injuring one American soldier
and two Iraqi civilians, the US military were quoted by the AP as
saying.
The
attacks came as press reports say the number of US military casualties
in Iraq is
steadily growing as the American forces are still facing
uphill resistance in various areas of the country.
Sadr
Office Surrounded
In
other developments across the turbulent country, Iraqi security forces
were surrounding the office of Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr in the holy
Shiite city of Najaf Monday.
"The
Iraqi national guard and police forces have encircled the office since
this morning and are attempting to raid it," Sheikh Ahmed
Shaibani said.
He
said Sadr officials had prevented Iraqi forces from entering the
premises and are demanding an authorisation signed by Grand Ayatollah
Ali Al-Sistani before they will allow the office to be searched.
But
the siege was later lifted after the intervention of Sistani, whose
mediation had ended an earlier standoff in the holy city.
Two
Women Killed
Back
to bloody events, a woman was killed and seven other people wounded
late Sunday in a fierce clash which broke out after a US convoy was
ambushed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police said.
Police
Lieutenant Colonel Hashem Ahmed Shihab gave the toll from Mosul
general hospital's police station.
The
gunmen fired about a dozen anti-tank rockets at the convoy, witnesses
said.
US
troops returned fire and the ensuing battle lasted almost half an
hour.
Also,
a Norwegian woman married to an Iraqi Kurd is believed to have been
shot dead in an attack in Suleimaniya in northern Iraq, her family
told a Norwegian newspaper in an article published Monday.
Marita
Stroem, 38, is presumed to have been killed by an unidentified
attacker while she was driving her car, her sister, Tove Stroem, told
the paper quoting information she had received from Kurdish relatives.
"That's
all we know and that she is supposedly dead. We are shocked and the
uncertainty is terrible. We hope that Marita is alive but at the same
time we fear the worst," Tove Stroem told the local newspaper
Namdalsavisa.
Marita
Stroem was on holiday with her husband, Osman Omar Osman, and their
three daughters when the shooting occurred, according to Osman's
sister who reported the death to the Norwegian family Saturday.
The
couple's mobile phones were not reachable.
Pipeline
Bombed
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Oil
pipelines in Iraq, ablaze again (AFP)
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In
northern Iraq, a pipeline supplying gas to a major electrical plant
south of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk was attacked Monday, a
local police official said.
"This
morning at 11:25 (0725 GMT), unknown attackers set fire to a gas
pipeline in the Taza region" some 20 kilometres (12 miles) south
of Kirkuk, police colonel Ali Mustashar al-Obeidi said.
Sabah
Shaku, an official for the Northern Electricity Co told AFP that the
attack "had had serious consequences for the Bayji electrical
plant which produces 400 megawatts per day and supplies the whole of
northern Iraq."
The
oil pipelines have been attacked by Iraqi fighters, as ordinary Iraqis
question the US claims for invading the country’s which has the
world’s second largest reserves.
No
weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq more than one and
a half year of occupation, raising fears the invasion was based on
false pretends.
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