Seven US Marines killed by car bomb
The attack nine miles north of Fallujah a stronghold for Sunni insurgents destroyed two Humvees, witnesses said. Medical teams in helicopters swept into the dusty, barren site to ferry away the injured, and troops sealed off the surrounding area.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, an interior ministry spokesman said that medical tests on a man being held in custody showed he is not former president Saddam Hussein's deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, ending conflicting claims about his purported arrest.
The man is a relative of al-Douri, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim, and was wanted by authorities.
The force of the car bomb outside Fallujah sent the vehicle's engine "a good distance" from the site, a military official said on condition of anonymity. Four Iraqis were wounded by fire from US troops near the site of the bombing, said Ahmed Bassem of the Fallujah General Hospital.
With yesterday's deaths and those of two American soldiers in a mortar barrage outside Baghdad a day earlier, 985 American service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the US Defence Department.
US forces have not patrolled inside Fallujah since April, when Marines ended a three-week siege. The city has since fallen into the hands of insurgents who have used it as a base to manufacture car bombs and launch attacks on US and Iraqi government forces.
The US military has retaliated by launching several airstrikes on insurgent safehouses in the city.
Yesterday's deaths were the largest number of Americans killed in combat in a single day since May 2, when nine troops died in separate mortar attacks and roadside bombings in Baghdad, Ramadi and Kirkuk.
Seven troops were killed on two days last month, but in each case, there were six Americans and one foreign coalition member who died. On August 21, six American troops and one Polish soldier died in combat and six were killed on August 15, along with a Ukrainian soldier.
Also yesterday, a Turkish driver taken hostage in Iraq was released by his captors, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said. The release came a day after the driver's company announced it would withdraw from Iraq in line with his captors' demands.
Elsewhere, US and Iraqi national guardsmen clashed with insurgents in the northern city of Mosul. Hospital officials said three civilians were killed and nine others wounded in the fighting late Sunday.
Iraqi police in the northern city of Kirkuk seized a car packed with explosives that authorities believed was going to be used by a suicide bomber, said police Colonel Sarhad Qadir.
He added that 38 people were detained during the operation.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Minister of State Qassim Dawoud said that the trial of Saddam Hussein and other indicted officials from his regime would start "within a few weeks ... before the end of this year and before (Iraqi) elections," which are planned for January.
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