ugnet_: WE HAVE LOST AN AMERICAN SOLDIER

[Mulindwa Edward]

American Soldier Killed In Iraq Bomb Attack By Andrew Marshall 8-11-3 BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- An American soldier was killed and two others wounded in a bomb attack in the central Iraqi town of Baquba, the U.S. military said Monday, as tensions simmered in the British-run southern city of Basra. The attack on the 4th Infantry Division in the restive town of Baquba, which lies in the "Sunni triangle" area northeast of Baghdad, occurred at around 10 p.m. (2 p.m. EDT) Sunday. The death brings to 56 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in hostile action in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. In Iraq's second city Basra, the scene of violent protests at the weekend, scores of unemployed men staged a noisy demonstration Monday morning. A foreign security guard and two Iraqis were killed over the weekend in the southern Shi'ite city after smuggling, sabotage and breakdowns of decrepit equipment caused chronic power and fuel shortages, leaving residents at the mercy of searing summer temperatures and stifling humidity. The city was calmer Monday morning. Saturday and Sunday, residents barricaded roads with burning tires and attacked vehicles with stones and chunks of concrete. British and Czech troops in the city fired warning shots, and in one incident returned fire at protesters. One Iraqi was killed by gunfire during Sunday's unrest, but it was not clear who fired the shots. Another Iraqi was crushed to death under the wheels of a truck. A Nepalese Gurkha working as a private security guard was killed by gunmen as he drove through the city delivering mail for the United Nations. Officials from the U.S.-led administration for Iraq initially described the killing as terrorism but said Monday it could have been a bungled robbery or carjacking. The weekend violence was some of the worst in Iraq since Saddam was toppled on April 9 and occurred in a city at the heart of the mostly Shi'ite Muslim south, which has been relatively peaceful in the wake of his fall. British troops have responsibility for securing Basra and surrounding areas. Monday, the British military presence on the streets of Basra was less overt and the city was quieter. A group of harbor workers, who said they had been sacked in the final months of Saddam Hussein's rule, gathered outside the Iraq administration headquarters demanding jobs and back-pay. "Everyone here has at least 10 years' service and what they are doing to us now is persecution," said one of the protesters, Nazim Abdul-Hussein Thahir. "They got rid of our tyrant, and thank God for that. But if they play with our salaries they are playing with our food and water." BREAKDOWNS AND SABOTAGE Officials in Iraq's U.S.-led administration say the frequent power cuts are due to sabotage of cables linking Basra to the national grid and equipment breakdowns at ramshackle power stations. They say sabotage of pipelines and rampant oil smuggling have led to the shortage of fuel. Highlighting Basra's problems, the country's main southern oil refinery in the city stopped processing completely Sunday night due to a power failure, the general manager of the southern refineries company said Monday. "It's zero. We don't have any electricity since yesterday night," Thair Ibrahim said. "The generators are not working... We are planning to install a new turbine, but this could take until the end of September." The violence in Basra came as a surprise as most unrest and attacks in recent months have been concentrated in the deposed president's Sunni heartlands in central Iraq where U.S. forces are stationed. The attack on U.S. troops in Baquba late Sunday followed a grenade attack on the hospital in the city late last month, killing three soldiers. In Baghdad, two Iraqis were slightly wounded overnight when grenades were hurled at two trucks driving near the British embassy, the U.S. military said. "The attack was in the vicinity of the British embassy but it did not target in any way the embassy," a spokesman said. Thursday, a truck bomb outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad killed at least 17 people. The top U.S. general in Iraq has blamed the attack on "professional terrorists" and says investigations are under way to find those responsible. U.S. commanders mainly blame Saddam's die-hard loyalists for attacks on their troops, but say there is also evidence of foreign fighters coming to Iraq to target Americans. Officials say they are confident of catching Saddam, who remains on the run despite a $25 million price on his head. Saddam's feared sons Uday and Qusay were killed last month when U.S. forces stormed their hideout in the city of Mosul.             The Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"             Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"