Violent Iraqi resistance grows

A BOMB exploded yesterday near a US military vehicle on the road to Baghdad’s airport, and assailants threw grenades at a US-led convoy, killing an American soldier and two Iraqi civilians.

The military also announced that a US Marine was killed on Wednesday while responding to an ambush in which three other Americans were wounded.

The ambushes were the latest in a growing tide of violent anti-coalition opposition, despite assurances that troops have been mopping up resistance around Baghdad.

The US military has blamed attacks around Baghdad on remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime or his Sunni followers, saying there was no organised resistance movement.

Yesterday, however, the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera reported that it received a statement and videotape from an alleged Iraqi resistance group claiming responsibility for the violence and threatening more. US defence officials had no immediate comment.

The bomb explosion on the airport road yesterday killed one American soldier and injured another, the US military said. The road, which is heavily used by US forces, has been the scene of several ambushes using trip wires dangling from overpasses or grenades tossed from bridges.

Also yesterday, attackers threw grenades at a US and Iraqi civilian convoy in west Baghdad, killing two Iraqi employees of the national electricity authority, US soldiers and Iraqi police said. The convoy included US Humvees at the front and the back and two Iraqi civilian vehicles in the middle. The victims were travelling in the same car.

On Wednesday, ambushers threw grenades from a Baghdad overpass onto a passing convoy of Army Humvees, said Marine Corps Major Sean Gibson. There were no serious injuries.

The same day, militants ambushed Marines in Hillah, 45 miles south of Baghdad, wounding three troops. Later, one Marine was killed and two were wounded when their vehicle part of a quick-reaction force sent in response to the Hillah ambush rolled over on the soft shoulder en route to the scene.

The names of the American and Iraqi victims were not immediately released. The latest killings raised the American death toll to 196 since the start of the war on March 20. At least 20 US soldiers have died as the result of hostile fire since major combat was declared over in May.

On Tuesday, violence in the southern Iraqi town of Majar al-Kabir killed six British soldiers and wounded eight British paratroopers. The British military yesterday blamed the violence involving the paratroopers partly on a misunderstanding over weapons searches.

Major General Peter Wall said the violence probably was sparked when British paratroopers entered the town, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, during a "routine joint patrol" with local militias.

However, Maj Gen Wall offered no explanation for an attack at a town police station later on Tuesday, in which six Royal Military Police were killed, some reportedly shot with their own weapons. He said he could not comment on those claims while an investigation continued.