US soldier killed in Baghdad rocket attack

An American soldier was killed and two others injured in an rocket propelled grenade attack on a military ambulance in Baghdad today.

It was the third reported attack on US personnel or their offices in the last 24 hours.

The ambulance was transporting a wounded US soldier to a medical facility when it was hit on a road in the south-west of the Iraqi capital

The injured soldier who was being transported was not the one killed, said Capt. John Morgan, a US military spokesman.

The casualties were members of a US army medical brigade.

The injured were taken to an army support hospital in south-west Baghdad. It was not clear if the ambulance was travelling as part of a convoy or if fire was returned.

The attack took place at noon in Baghdad’s al-Dora district.

Elsewhere, the US military said a mortar shell exploded outside a coalition-run humanitarian aid office in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad, killing an Iraqi bystander and wounding 12 others yesterday.

No American forces were hurt in the attack.

Ambushers fired a rocket-propelled grenade that struck a US tank in Samarra today. A second tank fired at the attackers, killing one and wounding another.

In west Baghdad, a US army truck was hit by what witnesses said was a rocket-propelled grenade.

The torn apart truck sat burning on the edge of the highway.

Witnesses in the area said there were casualties, but US military police at the scene said the vehicle had earlier broken down and was set on fire after it was left alone while soldiers prepared to remove it.

Meanwhile, scores of angry mourners fired Kalashnikov assault rifles into the air and shouted curses at the United States during a procession for two Iraqis who were shot dead by US troops at a protest by disgruntled former army officers.

Shouting “Death to Bush!” and “Revenge,” mourners marched with the body of 32-year-old former army officer Tareq Hussein Mohammed, killed by US troops, from his house in northern Baghdad to a mosque.

Mohammed was one of two men shot outside the gate of the coalition headquarters in Baghdad during a demonstration of ex-soldiers demanding their salaries. The US military said the men were shot after the protest turned violent.

“Abu Soheib, come back to us,” wailed his wife Soheir, using his nickname. “Now there is no salary, and no man.”

As neighbours saw the coffin arriving at his house from the morgue, they fired their weapons into the air for more than 15 minutes at a time in a deafening, frenzied display of defiance.

US troops have prohibited people from shooting their weapons in the streets.

In Iraq, shooting into the air is also a sign of respect for the dead.

“Iraqis are going to kill Americans. We are going to take revenge for Tareq’s blood,” said Salwa Mohammed, a relative of the slain man.

Black-clad women at the house sat on the floor and wailed.

As the US military grappled with an increase in guerrilla attacks, the United Nations reported that an increase in power failures in Baghdad was caused by sabotage to Iraqi power lines.

The UN also reported that humanitarian assistance vehicles were being fired upon, along with those of the US military.