Iraqi Insurgents Kill U.K. And U.S. Soldiers 18 Americans Have Died This Month

Apr 06, 08:59 AM

Current Headlines: By Kirk Semple

Ahmad Fadam in Baghdad and Iraqi employees of The New York Times in Basra and Kut contributed reporting.

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Seven American and four British soldiers were killed in attacks around Iraq over the last three days, coalition officials said Thursday, and an American helicopter crashed south of Baghdad, wounding four soldiers. Four of the Americans were killed Wednesday by bombs planted on roadways in southern Baghdad and north of the capital, the U.S. military command said. Three soldiers were killed by small-arms fire, the military said, one on Wednesday in eastern Baghdad and two on Tuesday in attacks in eastern and southern Baghdad.

At least 18 American service members have been killed so far this month, a very high rate, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent Web site that monitors military and civilian casualties.

The British soldiers were killed with a civilian interpreter in a multipronged attack during a patrol mission outside the southern city of Basra, the British military said.

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Stratford-Wright said the British unit fired back during an initial attack by gunmen, hitting at least one of them, before driving away, Reuters reported. Soon afterward, the unit was hit west of the city by a roadside bomb, followed by small- arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, Stratford-Wright said.

The five died when the roadside bomb exploded next to their vehicle, he said.

The attack was the deadliest for British forces in Iraq since November, when four servicemen were killed when their patrol boat was hit by a bomb in the Shatt al-Arab waterway near Basra.

In the four years since the American invasion in March 2003, at least 140 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

The U.S. military did not divulge the cause of the helicopter crash, which took place Thursday south of Baghdad. The helicopter was carrying nine people, all of whom were safely evacuated, military officials said.

Reuters quoted witnesses saying that the sound of heavy gunfire proceeded the crash, suggesting that the helicopter could have been shot down.

At least nine other helicopters, including two operated by private security firms, have crashed in Iraq since the beginning of the year, several due to insurgent attacks, news services reported.

In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber blew himself up outside a government security coordination center in the Jamaa neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding three, an Interior Ministry official said.

The nearby headquarters of Baghdad Television, a station owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab organization, was damaged in the blast, the police said.

Mortar shells fell in the Shorta neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing two and wounding five, the Interior Ministry official said, and a bomb planted on a major road in the Adil neighborhood of western Baghdad killed two people and wounded six.

In addition, a bomb exploded on a road in the Binouk neighborhood, killing a civilian and wounding two, the ministry official said.

In Mosul, the Iraqi Red Crescent has opened a camp for families who fled the recent sectarian bloodshed in the town of Tal Afar, an official at the organization said.

In those attacks, a suicide truck bombing killed 152 people and wounded 347 in a Shiite neighborhood. That attack triggered a rampage of sectarian vengeance by Shiite gunmen, including police officers, who killed at least 47 people, most of them Sunni Arabs, the authorities said.

About 1,300 people, most of them women and children, have sought shelter in the camp east of Mosul since it opened two days ago, said the official, Wadhah Ahmed.

Most are Sunni Arabs and Turkmen who fear a resurgence in attacks by Shiite militias, he said.

The U.S. military command said Thursday that Iraqi security forces had detained two men they suspected might have been involved in the Tal Afar truck bombing. The suspects were detained Tuesday at a house northwest of the city, the military said in a statement.

On a roadway east of Kut in southern Iraq the police found the bodies of two women, both teachers from Diyala, who were kidnapped during a bank robbery in Baquba, the police said. The robbers made off with about $11,500 in the heist, the police said.

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