BAGHDAD: Seven US soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter were attacked during a patrol in an Al Qaeda stronghold south of Baghdad yesterday. Five were killed and three are missing, the US military said.
The attack, one of the worst against American ground forces since a US-backed security crackdown began in Baghdad three months ago, took place near the town of Mahmudiya, in the same area where two US soldiers were abducted by Al Qaeda insurgents last year before their mutilated bodies were found.
US forces launched a search operation for the missing soldiers, using helicopters, unmanned drones and jets and setting up checkpoints in the area.
US spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said it was not immediately clear if the Iraqi army translator was among the dead or missing.
“This morning at 4.44am in Iraq, a coalition force team of eight soldiers (seven Americans and an Iraqi army interpreter), were attacked 12 miles west of Mahmudiya. As a result of this attack, five soldiers were killed in action and three are currently missing,” a US military statement said.
Residents in Mahmudiya, an area of orchards and palm groves that is a bastion of Sunni Arab militants including Al Qaeda, said gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms had stopped a US patrol comprised of three Humvees at a fake checkpoint before attacking the soldiers, an Iraqi army source said.
Last June, Al Qaeda militants abducted two US soldiers in nearby Yusufiya in an attack on a US checkpoint in which a third US soldier was killed. The mutilated and booby-trapped bodies of the two US soldiers were found days later.
Major-General William Caldwell, chief military spokesman for US forces in Iraq, was quoted in a statement as saying that 15 minutes after yesterday’s explosion a US drone observed two burning vehicles. A rapid-reaction force arrived in the area one hour after the attack, Caldwell said.
“The quick reaction force reported finding five members of the team killed in action and three others whose duty status and whereabouts are unknown,” Caldwell said.
He said US forces were using “every means at our disposal to find the missing soldiers, and we will continue these efforts until all are accounted for.”
The attack comes at a time when US President George W Bush is facing increasing pressure from Democrats to set timetables for withdrawing American troops in a war that has killed more than 3,300 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis since the invasion in 2003.
Under the Baghdad offensive, seen as a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq’s slide into all-out civil war between majority Shias and Sunni Arabs, thousands of extra US and Iraqi troops have poured across the capital and surrounding areas.
The push has reduced sectarian murders in Baghdad, but has also driven militants to regroup outside the capital, from where they have stepped up attacks. – Reuters |
