US soldier shot in Baghdad

An American soldier was shot in the head as he queued to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University today.

The soldier was shot at close range, witnesses said. He was evacuated to a military hospital, where he was in critical condition.

US forces killed two insurgents who fired a rocket-propelled grenade as they drove toward an army outpost in the capital.

The two men were killed last night as they charged US troops in a white pick-up truck, ignoring orders to stop. The burned-out shell of the truck sat on the side of a traffic junction in Baghdad today, cordoned off with white tape.

In other attacks, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade into a small US army compound in the town of Abu Sada al Sagra early today, lightly injuring one soldier.

The wounded soldier, Seth Janisse, from Michigan, US, suffered minor shrapnel wounds.

He said: “We saw the muzzle flash where the RPG had come from and we returned fire, but I don’t know if we got him.”

It was the third attack on the 4th Infantry Division in as many weeks in the town, 40 miles north east of Baghdad.

The violence came a day after a sniper shot and killed young British journalist Richard Wilde outside Iraq’s Natural History Museum.

Today Iraqis buried seven people killed in a bomb blast in the western city of Ramadi.

The blast occurred yesterday during a parade of US-trained police cadets. Paul Bremer, the top US official in Iraq, labeled the attack the work of “desperate men”.

The military announced the end of a seven-day sweep dubbed Sidewinder, saying they had detained 282 people and confiscated hundreds of weapons and ammunition, including 217 rocket-propelled grenades and three heavy machine guns. Over 10,000 US dollars was also seized.

Thirty Iraqis were killed in Sidewinder operations. There were no coalition deaths, but 28 soldiers were wounded, the military said.

None of Iraq’s top fugitives were apprehended.