US troops kill 11 attackers

AMERICAN soldiers shot dead 11 attackers who ambushed them in Samarra, northwest of Baghdad, in an upsurge of violence, as debate raged over the fate of captured former president Saddam Hussein.

US troops in Samarra “repelled a complex ambush”, a US military statement said yesterday, in one of the fiercest of a series of incidents north of the capital, in which US forces killed at least five other Iraqis.

In Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, reporters saw three US soldiers, one with head wounds, evacuated by helicopter after their Humvee vehicle hit a roadside bomb.

The army later sent hundreds of troops and dozens of tanks through the centre of Tikrit to calm locals whom 122 Battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Steven Russell described as “uppity”. Police had earlier fired in the air to disperse a pro-Saddam protest by 250 girl students in the tense city, a correspondent said.

In the northern capital of Mosul, a policeman was killed and another seriously wounded by drive-by gunmen after a demonstration by about 1,000 university students, police said.

The fresh attacks eliminated hopes of an early return to peace and security in Iraq following the announcement on Sunday that ousted dictator Saddam had been netted near Tikrit.

The military also said one soldier had been injured in Ramadi, 100 kilometres west of Baghdad, after pro-Saddam demonstrations.

“US forces returned fire, killing two and wounding two. In a separate attack, approximately 30 Iraqis began firing on a unit returning from a weapons cache,” a statement said. “The unit returned fire killing one of the attackers.”

In Fallujah, troops killed another two Iraqis, police and journalists said, after pro-Saddam demonstrators sacked regional government offices on Monday night. Police also said US troops shot dead one man and wounded another in separate incidents near the oil centre of Kirkuk, about 250 kilometres north of Baghdad.