BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Iraq's cascade of violence claimed more American lives, with a bomb attack on a military convoy in Baghdad early Monday killing one U.S. soldier and gunmen slaying two others in attacks hours earlier.
Insurgents threw a homemade bomb at a U.S. convoy in northern Baghdad early Monday, killing a soldier, said Sgt. Patrick Compton, a spokesman for the military.
Late Sunday, two assailants fired on another U.S. military convoy killing another soldier. Troops returned fire, killing one of the attackers and wounding the other, Compton said. The wounded suspect was taken into custody.
In the third fatal attack, an assailant shot a U.S. soldier in the head at close range as he waited to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University at midday Sunday.
Meanwhile, four U.S. soldiers were wounded after attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their convoy in the restive town of Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, late Sunday, the military said. One Iraqi suspect was killed and another wounded.
Tension has been ratcheted up in the town since a bomb blast on Saturday killed seven Iraqi police recruits as they graduated from a U.S.-taught training course. Dozens more were injured.
The U.S. military blamed the attack on pro-Saddam Hussein insurgents seeking to target those working with the Americans, but many in Ramadi said they thought the Americans themselves were behind the incident.
Ramadi, one of several Sunni-majority towns along the Euphrates River west of Baghdad, was a stronghold of support for Saddam, and has been the site of frequent attacks that have killed Americans as well as Iraqis.
Both of the American soldiers killed in convoy attacks in Baghdad were from the Army's 1st Armored Division, the Germany-based division which is charged with occupying the Iraqi capital.
The killing of the U.S. soldier waiting to buy a soft drink Sunday was similar to the slaying of a young British freelance cameraman, who was shot in the head outside a Baghdad museum on Saturday.
The death of the cameraman and a grenade attack on a U.N. compound raised concern that Iraq's worsening insurgency - until now targeting only coalition troops and Iraqis accused of U.S. collaboration - will spread to Westerners in general.
U.S. troops on patrol in Baghdad and other areas have been attacked several times a day, and Iraqi police and civilians perceived to be working with the occupying forces also have been targeted.
In the most serious such attack, U.S. Army Maj. William Thurmond said it was too early to tell whether a pattern was emerging that would suggest insurgents are targeting foreign civilians, but he said such a strategy could thwart news gathering and humanitarian relief efforts.
"Hopefully they're isolated events and we won't have to face them in the future," Thurmond said. "It might work to the advantage of someone who's trying to fight the coalition."
The killing of the television cameraman, 24-year-old Richard Wild, occurred around midday, while the victim was carrying no apparent sign that he was a reporter.
Wild, who arrived in the country two weeks ago aiming to be a war correspondent, was killed by a single pistol shot fired into the base of his skull from close range, colleagues said. The assailant fled into the crowd and was not apprehended.
In a similar incident, an assailant with a pistol shot and critically injured a U.S. soldier in the neck on June 27 as he shopped on a Baghdad street.
On Saturday, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the United Nation's International Organization for Migration office in Mosul, 240 miles northwest of Baghdad. The grenade slammed into a wall and damaged several cars, said Hamid Abdel-Jabar, a spokesman for the U.N. special representative in Iraq.
"There's no place for that in any civilized part of the world," Thurmond said. "As soon as we get hold of them, they're gone. We'll find them. We'll attack them. And if necessary we'll kill them."
Meanwhile, Turkey's semi-official Anatolia news agency said Monday that the United States has released 11 Turkish special forces detained in northern Iraq, ending a standoff between the NATO allies.
The soldiers - and 13 Iraqi staff and security guards who were also held - were returned to their office in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah by helicopter Monday, Anatolia reported.
U.S. troops from the 173rd Airborne took the Turkish forces in custody Friday in Sulaymaniyah over an alleged plot to harm Iraqi Kurdish civilian officials in the north. Turkey has denied any such plot.
The detentions outraged Turkey, deepened the Turkish public's mistrust of the United States, and strained efforts to repair relations soured over the Iraq war.
The Turkish forces were released in Baghdad on Sunday and spent the night at guesthouse there before being flown to the north.
In other news:
- An Australian NBC News sound engineer, Jeremy Little, died Sunday at a military hospital in Germany from complications following surgery for wounds he suffered June 29 in a grenade attack in Fallujah, NBC News said. Little, 27, was wounded when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the military vehicle in which he was riding.
- The military announced the end of a seven-day sweep dubbed Sidewinder, in which 30 Iraqis were killed and 282 detained, while 28 U.S. soldiers were wounded. The military said it confiscated ammunition stocks and hundreds of weapons.
Tuesday
February 11th, 2025
11:07PM
