Two US troops die in mortar attack on Baghdad base

TWO American soldiers were killed and four were wounded yesterday in a mortar attack on their base north of Baghdad. Earlier a US trooper was killed in a shoot-out in the northern city of Mosul.

The latest US deaths occurred when a mortar struck a forward operating base near Samara, 70 miles north of Baghdad, about noon yesterday.

Thirteen other soldiers were injured the previous night in a mortar attack near Baqouba, 40 miles north-east of the capital.

Witnesses reported a roadside bomb injured several other troops yesterday in Fallujah in the sixth attack by insurgents there in as many days.

Meanwhile, two children were killed and three adults wounded in a grenade attack yesterday on a police station in Mosul.

In Mosul, a soldier from the 101st Airborne Division was killed by small arms fire before dawn yesterday in the western end of the city.

The deaths brings to 108 the number of American soldiers killed by hostile fire since President George W Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.

The 13 injured soldiers, from the 4th Infantry Division, were wounded when a mortar round struck at hangar at Camp War Horse near Baqouba. Three were seriously injured and evacuated but the others were treated at the local aid station.

US troops fired back and pursued the attackers, army spokesmen said, but there was no word on any insurgent casualties.

In a separate incident, the 4th Infantry Division also said two Iraqis were killed after a patrol of its 2nd Brigade was attacked near Baqouba by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire at 10pm on Thursday.

The Americans pursued the attackers into a house and killed the pair, it said.

Also on Thursday, US troops detained six men digging by a roadside near Beiji, 120 miles north of Baghdad, with the intention of placing makeshift bombs there, the 4th Division reported.

The grenade attack on the police station in Mosul was carried out by three assailants, one of whom was apprehended, police said. The children aged three and five were killed when the grenade blew up at a side door of the station, located in a busy market street.

In Baghdad, at least two Iraqis were killed and seven injured when rockets fell on Thursday night in the Ad-Doura neighbourhood of the capital, residents said. The rockets smashed into several stalls in the Ad-Doura market.

There was no report from the US military command about the attack in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. However, Iraqi witnesses said it occurred yesterday morning near a bridge at the western end of the city.