US soldier killed in drive-by shooting

A US soldier was killed yesterday in an apparent drive-by shooting at a gas station in Iraq, the US military said.

The soldier was a member of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division which controls the city, 250 miles north of Baghdad.

The fatal attack was the second in two days in the northern city of Mosul where a 101st soldier was killed and two were injured in a roadside bombing Sunday. A total of 445 US soldiers have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion on March 20. Of those, 308 have died in enemy attacks.

Witnesses in Mosul said dozens of US soldiers cordoned the city's central neighbourhood of al-Muthana during a raid yesterday, inspecting cars and searching people walking in the streets. At least three helicopters flew overhead at low altitude.

On Sunday, US troops in Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad, seized $1.9 million (1.5m) in cash and false identification papers in a raid targeting a man suspected of financing insurgents.

US troops arrested one person in the operation, said Major Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division.

Near Kirkuk, also in the north, Iraqi police yesterday said they discovered a cache of 100 mortar rounds and other ammunition in a garbage dump after a tip from trash collectors. American troops later arrived and took away the weapons.

Also yesterday, Iraq’s Governing Council chose a dentist to replace Aquila al-Hashimi, a Shi’ite Muslim member of the 25-seat group who was assassinated in September, a council statement said.

Salama al-Khufaji, a Shi’ite professor of dentistry at Baghdad University, replaced al-Hashimi, who was mortally wounded September 20. Al-Hashimi was the highest Iraqi official killed by suspected loyalists of Saddam Hussein.