Gunmen kill US troops in shock attack

Gunmen speaking English, wearing US military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four US soldiers in Iraq’s Shiite holy city and shot them dead, in what is thought to be the most brazen and sophisticated attack in four years of warfare.

The US military has confirmed a report yesterday that three of the soldiers were dead and one was mortally wounded in the head when they were found in a neighbouring province about 25 miles from the supposedly secure local government compound in Karbala where they were captured last week.

A fifth soldier was killed in the initial attack on the compound.

The new account contradicted a US military statement on January 20, the day of the raid on an Iraqi governor’s office, that five soldiers were killed “repelling” the attack.

The security breakdown and the dramatic kidnapping and murder of the soldiers was leaked as president George Bush faces stiffening US Congress opposition over his plan to flood Baghdad and surrounding regions with 21,500 more American troops.

Two of most vocal war critics in Congress, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep John Murtha, were in the Iraqi capital Baghdad as the news broke.

In a statement last night, the military said two of the soldiers were handcuffed together in the back seat of a sport utility vehicle near the southern Iraqi town of Mahawil. A third dead soldier was on the ground nearby. The fourth soldier died on the way to hospital.

The shocking assault, 50 miles south of Baghdad, was conducted by nine to 12 gunmen posing as an American security team, the military confirmed.

The attackers travelled in black GMC Suburban vehicles – the type used by US government convoys – had American weapons, wore new US military combat fatigues, and spoke English, according to two senior US military officials.

The confirmation came after nearly a week of inquiries.

The US military in Baghdad initially did not respond to repeated requests for comment on reports that began emerging from Iraqi government and military officials on the abduction and a major breakdown in security at the Karbala site.

Within hours of the AP report that four of the five dead soldiers had been abducted and found dead or dying about 25 miles east of Karbala, the military issued a long account of what took place.

“The precision of the attack, the equipment used and the possible use of explosives to destroy the military vehicles in the compound suggests that the attack was well rehearsed prior to execution,” said Lt Col Scott Bleichwehl, spokesman for Multi-National Division-Baghdad.

“The attackers went straight to where Americans were located in the provincial government facility, bypassing the Iraqi police in the compound,” he said.

“We are looking at all the evidence to determine who or what was responsible for the breakdown in security at the compound and the perpetration of the assault.”

The Karbala raid, as explained by the Iraqi and American officials, began after nightfall on January 20, while American military officers were meeting their Iraqi counterparts on the main floor of the Provisional Joint Co-ordination Centre in Karbala.

Iraqi officials said the approaching convoy of black GMC Suburbans was waved through an Iraqi checkpoint at the edge of the city. The Iraqi soldiers believed it to be American because of the type of vehicles, the distinctive camouflage American uniforms and the fact that they spoke English. One Iraqi official said the leader of the assault team was blond, but no other official confirmed that.

A top Iraqi security official for Karbala province said Iraqi guards at the checkpoint radioed ahead to the governor’s compound to alert their compatriots that the convoy was on its way.

Iraqi officials said the attackers’ convoy divided upon arrival, with some vehicles parking at the back of the main building where the meeting was taking place, and others parking in front.

The attackers threw a grenade and opened fire with automatic rifles as they grabbed two soldiers inside the compound. Then the guerrilla assault team jumped on top of an armoured US Humvee and captured two more soldiers, the US military officials said.

In its statement, the US military said one soldier was killed and three were wounded by a “hand grenade thrown into the centre’s main office which contains the provincial police chief’s office on an upper floor”.

The attackers seized four soldiers and an unclassified US military computer and fled with them east toward Mahawil in Babil province, crossing the Euphrates River, the military officials said.

Iraqi officials said the four were captured alive and shot just before the vehicles were abandoned.

Police, who became suspicious when the convoy of attackers and their American captives did not stop at a roadblock, chased the vehicles and found the bodies, the gear and the abandoned SUVs.

The military statement said: “Two soldiers were found handcuffed together in the back of one of the SUVs. Both had suffered gunshot wounds and were dead. A third soldier was found shot and dead on the ground. Nearby, the fourth soldier was still alive, despite a gunshot wound to the head.”

The wounded soldier was rushed to hospital by Iraqi police but died on the way, the military said.

The military also said Iraqi police had found five SUVs, US Army-type combat uniforms, boots, radios and a non-US made rifle at the scene.

Three days after the killings, the US military in Baghdad announced the arrest of four suspects, detained after a tip from a Karbala resident.

Yesterday’s military statement referred to the attackers as “insurgents”, which usually suggests Sunnis. Although Karbala province is predominantly Shiite, Babil province is heavily populated by Sunnis in the north, near Baghdad. Babil’s central and southern regions are largely Shiite.

A senior Iraqi military official said the sophistication of the attack led him to believe it was the work of Iranian intelligence agents in conjunction with Iraq’s Shiite Mahdi Army militia, which Iran funds, arms and trains.