BAGHDAD,
August 11 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Another U.S. soldier
was killed and two were wounded overnight when a bomb went off in the
Iraqi town of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad as U.S. soldiers shot dead in
Baghdad two Iraqi policemen and beat a third.
"It
was at 9:45 pm (1745 GMT). One 4th Infantry Division soldier died and
two were wounded. They were near the police station," Lieutenant
Kate Noble confirmed Monday, August 11, the improvised explosive attack.
Earlier,
a police officer told Agence France-Presse (AFP) the town's police
station was attacked late Sunday, leaving one U.S. soldier wounded.
"A
grenade was hurled at the police station at 10:30 pm (1830 GMT) and a
U.S. soldier was injured," said Mohammed Jawad.
Although
the Americans and the police officer gave different times for the event,
it seemed likely they were talking of the same attack, as it was the
only reported incident at the station late Sunday.
Meanwhile,
the U.S. military's Central Command said Sunday an American soldier in
Iraq with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment was found dead in the
regiment's barracks.
"The
soldier was taken to the unit medical facilities, but could not be
resuscitated," it said in a statement, adding that the cause of
death was unknown.
At
least 57 U.S. soldiers have been killed in resistance attacks, while
another 60 have now died in non-combat incidents since the White House
declared major combat operations in Iraq over on May 1.
Policemen
Killed, Beaten
In
another development, U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday, August 9,
shot dead an Iraqi policeman they mistook for an attacker, killed
another as he tried to surrender to them and beat a third, a survivor of
the incident revealed Monday.
The
three Iraqi officers were firing from their unmarked car at a suspect
vehicle they were chasing when the Americans opened fire on them in a
western suburb of the capital, Sergeant Hamza Atiya Muhsen, who said he
was driving the car, told AFP.
Sergeant
Muhsen said one of his colleagues was shot as he sat in the back seat of
their white Hyundai car, which is the same make and color as many other
Iraqi police vehicles but did not have the blue markings and police
numbering.
The
third officer, who was uniformed, was shot as he got out from the front
passenger seat and held his hands in the air, holding the U.S.-issued
yellow police badge and shouting "police, police," said
Muhsen.
"Three
soldiers surrounded me. I got down on my knees, hands in the air,
holding my badge. One of them kicked me in the back and I fell to the
ground. Another one kicked me twice in the face. They put their boots on
my head and pressed it into the ground," said Muhsen, who said the
incident took place outside a cement factory on the Abu Gharib Road.
"I
kept saying "police, police," I don't speak English but it's
the same word in Arabic," said Muhsen, who said the beating lasted
several minutes.
Muhsen
showed AFP cuts to his nose and head, a black eye, and took off his
shirt to display bruises over much of his back and on his chest.
There
were dark stains on the back seat and the vehicle had six bullet holes
on the passenger side, 10 bullet holes in the front window, which had
remained intact, one on the driver's side and one in the roof.
Lieutenant
Colonel Muayad Farhan, deputy head of Al-Yarmuk police station where the
dead officers were based, confirmed that two of his officers had been
shot by the U.S. forces.
The
U.S. military said it was aware of an incident but unable to provide
information. But army spokesman Staff Sergeant J.J. Johnson said Sunday
there had been a case of "blue on blue" on Saturday, a term
for an incident where friendly forces fire on one another.
Hard
Times Ahead
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An
Iraqi vents his frustration on a British soldier during clashes in
Basra
|
Meanwhile,
British forces are up to a hard time in the country, as they are trying
to prevent a third day of unrest in the southern Iraqi city of Basra
that left a trail of dead Iraqis.
"It's
all calmed down. We're delivering fuel to stations," said Major
Charlie Mayo, military spokesman in the British-administered city where
people took to the streets for two days as tempers spilled over about
the poor conditions in the resentment-shaken city.
Gurkhas
formerly with the British army have been hired out by Global Security, a
private firm being used by the U.S. Civil Administration for protection,
the spokesman added.
"We're
working with the Iraqis to put the power lines back up. We're assisting
the coalition authority in providing fuel to all the fuel stations.
We've sourced about 15 million liters of fuel," Mayo said.
He
added that troops would be supervising gas stations to make sure black
market prices were not charged to customers, one of the multiple
grievances that lit the fuse of the two days of unrest.
"We've
got British engineers working with Iraqi contractors putting up power
lines," he said.
The
1.5 million population of the city have got fed up with gas shortages,
electricity outages and the rampant smuggling of petrol under the
watchful eyes of the British forces.
The
unrest first broke out Saturday near a gas station when several thousand
people burned tires and lobbed rocks at British troops, who responded by
firing rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.
At
least seven soldiers and four Iraqi civilians were wounded in that
melee, as the violence blew the lid off the notion that the British,
with patrol techniques forged in Northern Ireland, had found the secret
recipe for keeping the peace.
Two
grenades were also hurled on trucks near the British embassy in Baghdad
late Sunday, wounding an Iraqi.
The
grenades were thrown shortly after 9:00 pm (1700 GMT) under trucks
parked about 70 meters (230 feet) from the embassy, Staff Sergeant Amy
Abbott was quoted by AFP as saying.
The
trucks were civilian vehicles, possibly carrying cargo for the embassy,
Abbott said.
The
unrest in Basra was, in fact, a wake-up call for the British and U.S.
forces that they do not have an endless amount of time to rebuild the
country as cities go for hours without power and black marketeers
smuggle fuel.
