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270 U.S. soldiers have been killed so far
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BAGHDAD,
March 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Two U.S. soldiers
were killed and five others badly wounded in a bomb blast in northern
Iraq Saturday, March 13, as Washington raised concerns about the
possibility of resistance fighters' infiltrating Iraqi security
forces.
Separately,
an Iraqi died and three were injured in a road accident in central
Iraq
after their lorry was hit by a
U.S.
army vehicle, as another Iraqi was killed in a central
Baghdad
explosion.
In
an early morning ambush, a
U.S.
convoy on patrol in Tikrit, 180 kilometers (120 miles) north of
Baghdad
was hit by a roadside bomb and shot at by unknown attackers, a senior
U.S.
military official said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"There
is a potential that some of the wounded may pass away from their
wounds," the official told reporters in
Baghdad
.
None
of the attackers was killed, and there was no information of any
arrests after the ambush, the official said, on condition on
anonymity.
Homemade
and roadside bombs, the single biggest killer of
U.S.
military personnel in
Iraq
, are often disguised in the carcass of a dead animal such as a dog to
avoid raising the suspicion of people driving past.
Added
to an official Pentagon tally, the deaths raise to 270 the number of
U.S.
soldiers killed in action since U.S. President George W. Bush declared
major offensive against
Iraq
on May 1.
Another
roadside bomb exploded earlier in the day in Baquba, 60 kilometers (36
miles) northeast of
Baghdad
, as a
U.S.
convoy passed, police said.
The
blast near a gas station, failed to injure any U.S soldiers, but five
Iraqis were hurt.
Fresh
Attacks
In
the meantime, a
U.S.
military vehicle hit an Iraqi lorry transporting blocks of cement just
outside Baquba, said local police Captain Ali Hussein.
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Onlookers gather in front of a damaged perfume shop with fresh blood (AFP)
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The
U.S. Army was unable to provide any information on the accident.
Hussein said one of three
U.S.
vehicles hit the lorry killing one Iraqi worker and injuring three,
who were taken to a nearby hospital.
"The
Americans said they would compensate the Iraqi workers for the death,
injury and also damage incurred to their lorry," Hussein said.
In
central
Baghdad
, an explosion rocked the
popular Karrada shopping district earlier in the day, killing one
person and wounding another, according to the
U.S.
military.
Witnesses
said they saw three wounded in the blast after a man hurled an
explosive device at the shop, which according to one of the neighbors,
is owned by a relative of the U.S.-picked Governing Council member
Ibrahim al-Jaffari.
Shiite
Mosque Attacked
Meanwhile,
a Shiite mosque under construction was
destroyed overnight, locals in an area west of
Baghdad
said Saturday, accusing Sunni Muslims of carrying out the attack.
A
dome, designed to be the centerpiece of the Al-Rasul Al-Karim mosque,
lay in ruins along with the mosque's brick walls.
The
unfinished mosque, which was being built from donated money, was
situated in Ghazalia, 25 kilometers (17 miles) west of the Iraqi
capital, an area inhabited by both Shiites and Sunnis.
The
attack is the latest in a series of violent acts against members of
Iraq
's Shiite and Sunni population, raising concerns they could incite
civil war as the country struggles to recover from several
months of occupation.
On
Thursday, March 11, a prominent supporter of Shiite scholar Muqtada
al-Sadr was shot and killed in
Baghdad
's al-Shawafa district.
The
shooting of Kazim al-Sayed Musa al-Ghoriebi came hours after a Sunni
Muslim scholar was wounded in what he claimed was an assassination
attempt. His son and son-in-law were killed.
Police
Involvement
In
another development, an investigation is continuing into the mob-style
killing of two U.S government staffers and their Iraqi interpreter
after a
U.S.
official admitted that four men arrested were in fact policemen.
The
four were detained after the slayings Tuesday of the two U.S staffers
and an Iraqi woman near the town of
Hillah
,
south of
Baghdad
,
Maj. Gen. Mark Kimmitt was quoted by The Associated Press as saying.
U.S.
military spokesman Dan Senor called the policemen's role in the attack
"an exception" and defended what he called a
"robust" process of vetting police recruits to try to
uncover criminal pasts or links to Saddam's regime.
Polish
troops patrolling the region said the police stopped the staffers' car
at a checkpoint and shot them to death.
Kimmitt,
however, said the attackers may have been in a second car that ran the
military staffers off the road.
The
U.S.
and British forces began strikes on
Iraq
on March 20 last year on claims demolishing weapons of mass
destruction, but none of the banned arms have been found one year
afterwards – raising fears that the invasion of the oil-rich country
was made on false pretexts.
