BAGHDAD, 21 June 2003 — Irregular Iraqi fighters yesterday fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a power transformer in the troubled town of Fallujah. The grenade injured two US soldiers and sent a tower of flame into the night sky.
After the attack, the soldiers returned a barrage of gunfire into the darkness, said Soadad Khalil, the supervisor on duty at the power plant in Fallujah, 56 km west of here.
Brownlee of the 3rd Infantry Division said there was no firefight. More troops rushed to the area and rounded up 40 Iraqis trying to flee. He did not say how many remained in custody.
The attack knocked out one of the two transformers at the power plant, which provides nearly half the electricity to this city of about 75,000 people. Fallujah has been a center of resistance to the coalition occupation of Iraq.
Brownlee said the attack was directed against the troops guarding the facility, but the rocket missed its target. The transformer was still smoldering more than 12 hours after the attack, which happened shortly before midnight.
Khalil said the station’s employees were assessing the damage to see what could be salvaged.
Sabotage against power and water installations has been a key element of the anti-American resistance, which has been growing in recent days despite US officials insistence that it is not being organized centrally.
It was the latest of a spiraling series of attacks on US soldiers and sabotage against the infrastructure needed for Iraq’s reconstruction.
The US military said one of the soldiers suffered a concussion and the other bruises from the impact of the rockets exploding near two Bradley fighting vehicles at the gate.
Meanwhile, US forces conducted nine raids around Baghdad looking for weapons and activists resisting the coalition occupation. Five people were detained, said a statement from the US Central Command.
The raids were part of a sweeping roundup that began last Sunday “to isolate and defeat noncompliant forces throughout Iraq,” said the statement, which also cited assistance by the military in repairing electrical, gas and water systems.
In Samarra, an ancient town 120 km (75 miles) north of Baghdad, an armored patrol was ambushed for the second consecutive night. The patrol wounded and captured an assailant who fired an automatic weapon on the vehicles Thursday night, said Col. Don Campbell, of the 4th Infantry Division.
Daily attacks against the US-led coalition have grown increasingly lethal in the last week. On Thursday, assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a military ambulance south of Baghdad, killing one American and wounding two others. He was the third soldier to die from hostile fire this week alone.
