IRAQ: An American special forces soldier was killed and eight others wounded yesterday by hostile fire in south-western Baghdad, the US military said.
In a statement, the US Central Command did not describe the circumstances under which the American troops came under fire.
It was the latest in a spate of incidents in which American and British soldiers have been killed in hostilities in post-war Iraq.
In another incident, two American soldiers appear to have been abducted on Wednesday night, defence officials said in Washington yesterday. The men and their Humvee army vehicle had been stationed at an observation post near the town of Balad, north of Baghdad, when they went missing.
The increasing number of attacks underscore resistance to US and British occupying forces nearly three months after the ousting of former leader Saddam Hussein.
Six British troops were shot dead in southern Iraq on Tuesday and 20 Americans have been killed since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1st. The Americans and British blame most of the attacks on Saddam loyalists.
In one attack yesterday, a rocket-propelled grenade hit a tractor trailer in a military convoy on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, a US military spokesman said. Two soldiers were wounded.
US soldiers opened fire but no one appeared to have been hit, witnesses at the scene said.
After the attack, young boys and older men in traditional Iraqi garb hurled stones at the wreckage in a sign of support for the Iraqi attack.
"There was an explosion . . . the Americans started shooting indiscriminately," said Qassem Hassan, who was selling soft drinks about 30 metres from the wreckage.
Earlier, an explosion ripped through a US vehicle carrying Iraqi electrical workers in another Baghdad suburb, killing the driver and wounding one person, a US military spokesman said.
The electrical workers' car was unmarked but the vehicles of the US-led administration are easily recognisable.
"They were driving a CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority\] vehicle," a US army spokesman told a news conference. "We think they were hit by an improvised explosive device in a rocket-propelled grenade."
American soldiers rushed to the scene soon after the morning attack on a road to Baghdad airport in the Amiriyah district and treated the casualties.
British officials said attacks on the power grid and Iraqis working to restore basic services were part of an effort by Saddam loyalists to discredit US and British occupying powers.
A power station manager was shot dead on the outskirts of Baghdad on Wednesday and earlier this week looters stole cables to cut power to the capital of five million people for 36 hours.
Mr John Sawers, Britain's special representative to Iraq, said some Iraqis working with the US-led civilian administration had been warned against further co-operation.
"The opposition that we have had over the last month or so has come from remnants of the Baathist regime. We have no direct evidence as yet as to who is responsible for this, but all the indicators point to this same direction," Mr Sawers said. - (Reuters)