US army suffers heavy casualties in Iraqi ambush

sept 18-2003

KHALDIYAH, Iraq (AFP) - A US convoy took heavy casualties in an ambush, witnesses said, as Iraq erupted in a spate of anti-US attacks after the release of another purported message from Saddam Hussein .

No official toll was available from the mid-afternoon incident but the witnesses reported seeing between four and eight badly burned US soldiers pulled out of one military vehicle engulfed in flames.



Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television said in an unconfirmed report that eight Americans were killed when the convoy hit a roadside bomb and was pelted with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) as its limped to a nearby base.

The attack was the latest in a Sunni flashpoint area west of Baghdad. It came amid a series of assaults on US troops around the country after release Wednesday of an alleged tape by Saddam exhorting Iraqis to renewed resistance.

The US military said Thursday two soldiers were wounded in an attack near the town of Ramadi west of Khaldiyah, but would not confirm reports of heavy casualties in the same general area.

US soldiers also shot up a car belonging to the US news agency Associated Press when its reporters tried to film a burning vehicle in Khaldiyah, the AP staffers said. The two reporters and driver, all Iraqis, were unhurt.

Some 300 Iraqi demonstrators celebrated the attack on the convoy, brandishing bits of American vehicles, hoisting portraits of Saddam and pledging to die for the dictator ousted by US-led forces in April.

"With our blood, with our soul, we will sacrifice for you O Saddam" and "Saddam is the glory of my country," they chanted. Others danced joyously around at least two US vehicles swallowed by flames and thick black smoke.

Witnesses in Khaldiyah, 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad, said the attack was triggered by a bomb that went off underneath an American vehicle that caught fire with about 10 US soldiers inside.

Mahmud Ali saw eight burned troops taken from the bombed vehicle hit while the convoy was passing through Khaldiyah en route from the town of Fallujah toward Ramadi. Yusuf Ali, 40, no relation, said he saw four victims.

"A bomb exploded underneath a troop transport. It caught fire. The remainder of the convoy tried to continue and was hit by rocket-propelled grenades 500 meters (yards) away," said Mahmud Ali.

The Americans tried to seal off the road and call in reinforcements but the convoy was hit at least twice by RPGs as it continued on its way toward a nearby base. At least one other vehicle was set ablaze.

A US helicopter circled the area, apparently poised to evacuate the wounded but did not land, the witnesses said. A loud explosion was heard in the town towards late afternoon and another in the evening but there was no report of damage or casualties.

US military officials would not discuss reports of heavy casualties, saying only that two soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were wounded and three vehicles damaged by a bomb and small-arms attack near Ramadi.

US soldiers also reported a loud explosion near a bank in Ramadi Thursday evening, but said there were no injuries. No further details were immediately available.

The Khaldiyah attacks occurred a day after hospital officials in nearby Fallujah said US soldiers had killed an Iraqi teenager and wounded six other people after becoming spooked by celebratory gunfire at a wedding.

That incident further fueled tensions in the town where US soldiers shot dead nine Iraqi security officers last Friday in a "friendly fire" incident.

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But the Khaldiyah ambush was only one of a series of attacks on US forces Thursday.

Six mortar rounds were fired at Baghdad international airport at 3:00 pm (1100 GMT), said US army spokesman Sergeant Mark Ingham. He gave no further details.

A US army base in Samarra, 110 kilometres (65 miles) north of Baghdad, was also hit by mortar fire on Thursday, Ingham added. No one was wounded and no vehicles were damaged in that incident.

In the northern city of Mosul, US troops came under a series of grenade and rocket attacks that began shortly before midnight and targeted a position at the entrance to the city, a restaurant and a hotel.

The US military confirmed one incident, saying that five rockets hit the Civil Military Operations Center office in Mosul late Wednesday, damaging some vehicles and leaving two people slightly wounded.

Two Iraqi policemen were found dead, their throats slit, on the sidewalk in front of Mosul's US-supported television station around midnight, according to an employee of the station, Samir Abed Rabbo, 50.