BAGHDAD, 17 June 2003 — Ambushers fired rocket-propelled grenades at two US military convoys yesterday, in separate attacks that wounded at least eight Americans, two of them seriously, a US military spokesman said yesterday.
In the first attack, a grenade hit a civilian Iraqi bus that was passing a 4th Infantry Division convoy near the town of Mushahidah, about 25 km (15 miles) north of Baghdad. A US military statement said the number of casualties on the bus were unknown.
At least six Americans were wounded in that attack, said Capt. John Morgan, a US military spokesman in Baghdad. Two of them were in a serious condition.
Soldiers returned fire “to protect the convoy and the civilian bus,” said the statement from US Central Command.
Also yesterday, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a US military convoy near Dujayl, a town 55 km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, lightly wounding two soldiers, Morgan said.
“The convoy returned fire, and the attackers fled the area. A quick reactionary force was dispatched to provide security for the convoy and pursue the attackers,” the Centcom statement said.
The incidents were the latest in a series of attacks against US occupation forces in Iraq. In response, the military has begun large-scale sweeps around the country in search of insurgents and weapons.
In the second attack, a grocery store owner said he heard gunfire, ran outside and saw that the last truck in a 15-vehicle convoy had been hit. Qusai Taha, 33, said he saw two American soldiers, apparently wounded, being taken out of the truck.
Later, Taha said, two Iraqis arrived at the scene on a motorbike and set the vehicle ablaze. Other witnesses in the area gave similar accounts. US soldiers were working yesterday to remove the burned out vehicle.
Separately, a civilian car was destroyed as it drove through a Baghdad tunnel in an explosion US troops and Iraqi police said was probably caused by a land mine. Two wounded Iraqis came staggering out of the tunnel after the blast, covered in blood and soot. They said there were five people in the car when it was hit by the explosion.
“What happened was a bomb went off over here. It was probably a land mine that somebody threw out on the road and the guy ran over it,” said a US soldier who arrived at the scene just after the blast.
The soldier said the three other occupants of the car escaped unscathed.
Centcom said it had launched a new mission, Operation Desert Scorpion, to hunt for pro-Saddam fighters who have mounted several deadly attacks in the restive towns and villages to the north and west of the Iraqi capital. Angry locals say US raids are stoking hostility toward the Americans and fueling demands across Iraq for occupying forces to leave. On Sunday, hundreds of people marched through Basra to demand that the British troops running the city hand over power to an Iraqi local government.
