BAGHDAD, 24 November 2003 — Three US soldiers were killed in northern Iraq yesterday as the US-led coalition closed Baghdad airport to civilian flights and resistance fighters kept up their attacks.
Meanwhile, the interim Governing Council named Baghdad’s first ambassador to Washington in 13 years and urged greater Arab involvement in the country’s post-war political process.
Two US soldiers killed in the heart of Iraq’s northern city of Mosul allegedly had their throats slit after being ambushed in traffic, two witnesses said.
Questioned by journalists, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said it would be “ghoulish” to comment on the testimony, but did not specifically deny it, adding that there was “an ongoing investigation”.
A formal US military statement said the two men from the 101st Airborne Division which patrols Mosul were killed just past noon (0900 GMT) in western part of the city center.
Witnesses said they saw gunmen open fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles on three vehicles, causing one to crash, in the central Ras Jada district of the city.
Further south, a US soldier was killed and two wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Baqubah, north of the capital, 4th Infantry Division spokesman Col. Bill MacDonald said.
Yesterday’s deaths raised to 183 the number of US soldiers killed in combat in Iraq since May 1, when Washington declared major hostilities over.
On Saturday evening, Iraqi police Col. Abdel Salam Qanbar, in charge of security for oil installations in Mosul, was shot dead by unknown gunmen as he left a mosque, police Gen. Khaled Fathi Jassim said.
And at dawn yesterday, a former official of Saddam’s Baath party was gunned down and then run over as he was going to a Mosul mosque to pray, police said, in what appeared to be the latest in a spate of revenge killings.
Following Saturday’s missile strike on a cargo jet belonging to German-owned courier DHL, the US-led coalition confirmed it had ordered the suspension of all civilian flights into Baghdad.
“There is a hold right now on Royal Jordanian and DHL civilian aircraft...pending further investigation,” Kimmitt said, adding that military flights will continue.
A top American general visiting a US base in the flashpoint northern town of Tikrit said coalition troops would stay in Iraq as long as it takes to restore stability, and stressed no decision had been made on the duration of the deployment.
“We’re going to do what it takes to get the job done,” Gen. Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
In Kirkuk, three Turks were arrested on suspicion of involvement in a suicide bombing that killed five people.
