Deadliest day for US in Iraq

2005-01-27 12:39

Baghdad - Six Iraqis were killed in election violence on Thursday as insurgents exploded roadside bombs, clashed with United States troops and blew up a school that had been slated to serve as a polling centre. One US soldier was wounded in a convoy ambush, a day after the deadliest day for US troops since the war began.

Australian officials announced that one of two car bombings on Baghdad's dangerous airport road on Wednesday had injured eight Australian soldiers riding in a convoy escorting Australian government officials.

Two of the injured Australian soldiers were expected to be airlifted to Germany on Thursday for surgery to remove shrapnel and repair broken bones, said the head of Australian troops in the Middle East, Air Commodore Greg Evans said.

In a continuation of the pre-election violence plaguing the country, three Iraqis were killed and seven injured when a roadside bomb missed a US convoy in Mahmoudiya area, 30km south of Baghdad on Thursday morning, according to the area's hospital director, Dawoud al-Taie.

Wednesday the deadliest day

In Samarra in the same region, armed men exploded a local school administration building on Thursday morning after first ordering the staff to leave, said police Lieutenant Qassim Mohammed. The destroyed building had been scheduled to be a voting centre in Sunday's elections.

Sporadic clashes also erupted in Samarra on Thursday morning between US troops and armed men, killing one Iraqi civilian and injuring another, Mohammed said.

US forces exchanged fire with insurgents in Ramadi, capital of the insurgent-plagued province of Anbar.

In Baqouba, the body of a colonel in the former Iraqi intelligence during Saddam Hussein's era, Talib Minshid, was found in the city, according to a Baqouba hospital official, Mohammed Ali. Minshid had been abducted by armed men two days ago.

The US soldier was injured when his convoy was attacked early on Thursday near Kirkuk by small arms fire and a roadside bomb, said Master Sergeant Robert Powell. Five people were arrested, he said.

Just days before Sunday's crucial election, four Iraqi National Guard soldiers and one officer also were kidnapped on Wednesday afternoon in Baghdadi, 150km west of Baghdad.

The kidnapping occurred after the Iraqi soldiers' car was stopped by insurgents at a checkpoint, according to witnesses at the scene who saw the incident.

On Wednesday, rebels launched a string of car bombs and attacks on polling centres across the country that killed at least 13 people.

Another six US troops were killed in insurgent ambushes on Wednesday, and 30 US marines and one sailor also died in a helicopter crash in bad weather in the western desert.

That made Wednesday the deadliest single day for Americans since the Iraq war began nearly two years ago.

- AP