BAGHDAD, 27 May 2003 — One US soldier was killed and four were wounded in two separate Iraqi ambushes yesterday in one of the most violent days since US forces captured Baghdad on April 9.
The fatal ambush was one of four separate attacks against US forces in a single day, including one in Baghdad, marking an increase in what have until now been sporadic and largely ineffective guerrilla-style attacks.
The US military said in a statement that gunmen fired assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at a convoy of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment convoy near the town of Haditha, 180 km (110 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
“The eight-vehicle convoy was conducting a re-supply mission from Al-Asad Air Base to Al-Qaim (on the Syrian border) when it was attacked at about 6:15 a.m. (0215 GMT),” it said. The statement said one soldier died and a wounded soldier was evacuated by helicopter.
Hours later, an explosion ripped through a US military convoy on a highway on the outskirts of Baghdad, wounding three soldiers and destroying their Humvee military car.
“An RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) could not have done this...it must have been a land mine,” said a US soldier who was traveling in the convoy. An officer said soldiers saw a grenade being hurled at the vehicle in what he said was a “cowardly attack”.
The convoy was traveling on Amiriyah highway in western Baghdad. US troops, backed by tanks, sealed off the scene.
Residents in the neighborhood lined the road looking at the destroyed vehicle. “They deserved it and they deserve more. They are occupiers, not liberators,” Amiriyah resident Ali Abbas said.
In an indication of a possible rise in such attacks as Washington struggles to fill a power vacuum after Saddam’s fall and restart the devastated infrastructure, the US military reported two other attacks on Monday. A military police position in Baqoba, north of Baghdad, that had been used by Shiite militiamen came under grenade attack, another US statement said. As Fifth Corps soldiers searched for the attackers, they shot twice and killed a woman who ignored warnings and continued to walk toward them while hiding two grenades, it said.
In the last incident, an unidentified assailant fired a rocket-propelled grenade at 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) soldiers who were on patrol in Baiji but the round did not explode, the military said.
And in an ominous development, a band of Iraqi Army officers, who lost their jobs after the US authorities disbanded Iraqi security forces last week, threatened suicide bombings if their grievances were not redressed. “We demand the speedy establishment of a government, the return of security, the rehabilitation of public institutions and the payment of wages to all soldiers,” former Gen. Saheb Al-Mussawi said in an address to around 100 former officers in central Baghdad. “If our demands are not respected, next Monday will mark the date of the break between the Iraqi Army and people on one side and the occupiers on the other,” he said. “All soldiers and their families will protest peacefully in Baghdad and other towns on Monday from 10 a.m. (0600 GMT).”
Former Col. Ahmed Abdullah said: “If our position is not settled, we threaten to take up arms.” “We are soldiers used to combat and we have volunteers for martyrdom,” warned former Lt. Col. Ziad Khalaf in reference to suicide bombers.
Meanwhile, US forces on Sunday detained a brother-in-law of Saddam Hussein in Tikrit. Maj. Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the US 4th Infantry Division, said Mulhana Hamood Abdul Jabar was Saddam’s son-in-law but was not on a list of 55 most wanted Iraqi officials.
