US forces under fire in Mosul attack

US forces in the northern city of Mosul came under attack yesterday as insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at a military compound and a grenade exploded near a military convoy in the city centre.

One US soldier was wounded and two Iraqi teenagers were killed in the blast near Mosul’s city hall, the military and hospital sources said. Two Iraqi teenagers also were slightly wounded.

Separately, a US soldier died of wounds sustained from a “non-hostile gunshot” at a Baghdad checkpoint, the military said.

Also, soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division captured two former Iraqi Army generals in an early raid yesterday in Fallujah, the military said. The two men were suspected of being “key financiers” and organisers of anti-coalition fighters operating there, the military said.

The continuing attacks by shadowy groups of Iraqi resistance fighters have cast doubt on the ability of the US-led coalition to contain the growing insurgency, and have sparked an exodus from Baghdad of international organisations and diplomats from several Western countries.

Spain, a close US ally, withdrew many of its diplomatic staff because of escalating violence. Huge explosions thundered through Baghdad on Tuesday evening as the insurgents targeted the two-square-mile “Green Zone”, which includes coalition headquarters, the military press centre and other key facilities.

Iraqi police said two mortars fell in the zone, but US officials said the headquarters itself, located in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces, was not damaged. A Pentagon spokesman said three people were wounded. It was unclear if they were military or civilians.

The huge detonations sent coalition staffers running into the hallways. It was the second mortar attack against the Green Zone in as many days.

The Spanish withdrawal followed the slaying of a Spanish navy captain in the truck bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad on August 19, and the October 9 killing of a Spanish sergeant.