BAGHDAD, 6 April 2007 — Gunmen have killed nearly 20 Iraqi, British and American soldiers in the past 24 hours, officials said yesterday, underscoring how deadly the country remains four years after the US-led invasion. The attacks took place in Baghdad, near the northern city of Mosul and the southern oil hub of Basra.
Four British soldiers and an interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb that destroyed their armored fighting vehicle when they were ambushed on the outskirts of Basra, a British military spokesman said. “The unit was involved in an operation elsewhere. As they were on they way back from the operation it was targeted by a roadside bomb in conjunction with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades,” he said.
“It is with deep regret that we can confirm that four British soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in a roadside bomb attack against a Warrior patrol west of Basra this morning,” said the Ministry of Defense in London. British Lt. Col. Kevin Stratford-Wright said the patrol repelled an initial attack from gunmen, hitting at least one assailant with return fire, before moving out of the urban area and coming under attack again.
The nationality of the civilian interpreter was unclear. The British military denied accusations by Iraqi police that British troops had stormed a police checkpoint close to the scene of the attack shortly afterwards and beaten some police.
Six British soldiers have now been killed in Iraq this week, making it one of the deadliest for British forces to date. At least 140 British soldiers have now been killed during the Iraq war. More than 3,260 US soldiers have been killed.
Gunmen also killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and wounded one in an attack yesterday on their checkpoint near Mosul, an army source said. The source said at least 40 gunmen attacked the checkpoint at dawn northwest of Mosul, setting their vehicles on fire and seizing their weapons.
Separately, four American soldiers were killed by two roadside bombs in and around Baghdad on Wednesday, the US military said. Those attacks followed a relatively quiet period in Baghdad, where US and Iraqi forces have deployed thousands more troops to enforce a new security crackdown seen as a last-ditch attempt to stop the country tearing itself apart.
Sectarian violence between Sunni Arabs and majority Shiites has escalated since the bombing of a Shiite shrine a year ago. Since the US invasion in March 2003, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and millions displaced.
Four personnel on board a US Army helicopter were yesterday wounded and “evacuated” when it crashed south of Baghdad. Five others on board were safe, but the US military did not specify the circumstances in which the helicopter crashed. Earlier reports said a Black Hawk crashed after being hit by ground fire in the Sunni stronghold town of Latifiyah, 40 km south of Baghdad.
Insurgents also killed a top Iraqi journalist in a bomb attack yesterday. In Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up a dump truck outside the office of Baghdad Television, a 24-hour channel owned by the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, killing the network’s deputy bureau chief Taher Ahmed Jabr. Another 12 employees were wounded.
Police also found the body of an Iraqi woman journalist, Khamael Muhsin, who was a prominent television newsreader during the time of Saddam Hussein, a day after she was kidnapped, a media rights group said.
