Two US soldiers killed in ambush

Two US soldiers were killed and four injured in an ambush just hours after a suicide car bombing that killed 10 people, including the driver, in the same Baghdad neighbourhood, the US military said today.

The troops from the 1st Armoured Division were on a routine patrol in Sadr City, the largest Shiite Muslim enclave in Baghdad, when the ambush happened last night. No further details were released.

Earlier yesterday, a bomber crashed a white car loaded with explosives into a police station in the Sadr City neighbourhood, killing himself and nine other people and wounding as many as 45.

In another part of the city, gunmen – one dressed as a Muslim cleric – shot and killed a Spanish military attaché.

The violence came six months to the day after Baghdad fell to American forces, underscoring the predicament of a capital whose deliverance from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny has been repeatedly undermined by terrorism, attacks on US forces and sectarian unrest.

In other developments yesterday:

- Iraq’s national electricity network – crippled by war, looting and sabotage - has surpassed the production levels of the pre-war period for the first time in six months.

- US troops arrested an Iraqi resistance leader believed to be responsible for scores of deadly attacks against American forces around Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit. They also uncovered a factory where deadly roadside bombs were being built.

- A 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a US convoy northeast of Baghdad, the military said.

- US soldiers conducted a raid Sunday near the Syrian border and detained 112 suspects, including a high-ranking official in the former Republican Guard.