Soldiers arrest 50 after bloody day in Iraq

US soldiers arrested nearly 50 people and confiscated weapons in several raids in Iraq’s volatile Sunni Triangle today after a series of bombings that killed six US soldiers.

An American soldier died today of wounds suffered in a grenade attack on his Bradley vehicle that was patrolling a central Iraqi town of Beiji yesterday, said Major Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division.

Five other US soldiers were killed in separate bombings, and a blast that narrowly missed an American convoy killed four Iraqis and wounded about 40 others in a bloody day of attacks yesterday.

The deaths raised to 513 the number of US service members who have died since the United States and its allies launched the Iraq war March 20. Most of the deaths have occurred since US President George Bush declared an end to active combat on May 1.

The violence underscores continued resistance to the American occupation that is strongest in the Sunni heartland north and west of Baghdad, despite the December 13 capture of Saddam Hussein.

Today, US soldiers raided several locations in Baqouba, 35 miles north-east of the capital, and captured 46 people including three men suspected of involvement in anti-coalition activities, Aberle said. The remaining 43 were detained for possessing weapons without authorisation, she said.

In Mukayshifa, a town south of Tikrit, soldiers raided a house today and confiscated 100 hand grenades, Aberle said.

Insurgents fired the rocket propelled grenade at the Bradley in the town of Beiji, north of Tikrit, late yesterday, piercing the driver’s compartment and critically wounding the soldier. The soldier was evacuated to a military hospital, where he died.

A second Bradley fighting vehicle returned fire toward the area from where the grenade was launched, and soldiers later captured six men who were in the possession of a grenade launcher, Aberle said.

In Khaldiyah, some 70 miles west of Baghdad, three US soldiers were killed and six more were wounded yesterday when a vehicle, possibly driven by a suicide bomber, exploded at a US checkpoint near a bridge across the Euphrates river, the US command said.

Iraqi witnesses said a four-wheel-drive vehicle drove up to the checkpoint and exploded in front of a US Army Humvee trying to block it. At least eight Iraqis - six of them women – were injured, according to Dr Ahmed Nasrat Jabouri of the provincial hospital in nearby Ramadi.

Two other US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb that struck their four-vehicle convoy north of Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim city near Khaldiyah in a centre of anti-American resistance.

A fourth attack took place when a truck bomb exploded yesterday morning near government buildings in Samarra, about 70 miles north of Baghdad, barely missing a US military police patrol as it turned into a police station compound.

The blast killed four Iraqi civilians and wounded about 40 people, including seven American soldiers who were cut by flying glass inside one of the buildings. The Americans’ wounds were not life-threatening.

The explosion set fire to a half-a-dozen cars parked near the buildings, which included a police station and municipal offices, and gouged a large crater in the street.

The burned-out hulks of the cars – some reduced to mounds of twisted metal – smouldered in the damp, chilly air hours after the blast.

In other developments today:

:: The police chief of Tathrib town was arrested following allegations of corruption. Soldiers from the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment searched his house yesterday and confiscated five AK-47 rifles, two other rifles and ammunition.

No details of the corruption allegations were known, Aberle said.

:: A roadside bomb exploded near a US patrol in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, but no injuries were reported, a US soldier said, speaking on condition of anonymity.