The attack came less than a day after insurgents shot and killed a
soldier from the Army's 101st Airborne Division as he guarded a gas
station in Mosul, 250 miles north of Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt
said in Baghdad.
"Four Iraqi males traveling in vehicles stopped approximately 50
meters (yards) from a gas station in Mosul and opened fire on coalition
soldiers guarding the station," Kimmitt said of the attack Monday. "One
coalition soldier died of gunshot wounds in that attack."
On Tuesday, a car drove up to the gate of the base of the 3rd Brigade
of 101 Airborne division in the town of Talafar, 30 miles west of Mosul,
spokesman Maj. Trey Cate said.
Guards opened fire on the vehicle and it blew up, he said.
A total of 31 soldiers were wounded, mostly by debris and flying
glass. None of the injuries were lift-threatening, Cate said.
"Whether it was a suicide attack or not, I don't know," Cate said.
On Monday, three U.S. soldiers in Mosul were wounded when a bomb
exploded as their patrol passed, a U.S. military spokesperson said on
condition of anonymity.
Three other U.S. soldiers were killed and one injured Monday when two
Stryker infantry carrier vehicles they were riding in rolled into a
canal near Duluiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad. Hostile fire was not
involved.
Kimmitt said Monday that there were 18 engagements between Iraqi
guerrillas and U.S.-led coalition forces in the past week, a marked
decline over previous weeks.
"These numbers are significantly lower than recent norms, although we
anticipate and are fully prepared for any upturn in attacks in the days
and weeks ahead," he said.
A total of 448 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq (news
- web
sites) since the U.S.-led invasion on March 20. Of those, 308 died
in hostile action.
Witnesses in Mosul said dozens of U.S. soldiers cordoned the city's
central neighborhood of al-Muthana during a raid Monday, inspecting cars
and searching people walking in the streets. At least three helicopters
flew overhead at low altitude.
"We are looking for bad guys," a soldier said without elaborating.
On Sunday, U.S. troops in Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad, seized
$1.9 million in cash and false identification papers in a raid targeting
a man suspected of financing insurgents, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle,
spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division.
"They didn't catch the original target but they detained one of his
relatives and seized the money," Aberle said.
Samarra was the site of heavy fighting Nov. 30 between Iraqi
guerrillas and U.S. soldiers who were delivering new Iraqi currency to
local banks.
In other developments Monday, a South Korean company said it would
withdraw its 60 workers from a power line project in Iraq because gunmen
killed two of its engineers. Seoul's Omu Electric Co. has been building
transmission towers in the north of the country since October under
contract with Washington Group International, based in Boise, Idaho.
The rollover of the Stryker vehicles occurred when an embankment
collapsed on a rural road during combat patrol northeast of Duluiyah,
Lt. Col. William MacDonald said.
The names of the soldiers were being withheld pending notification of
kin. The soldiers were from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division,
Stryker Brigade Combat team.
The injured soldier was taken to a hospital in Balad, Iraq, MacDonald
said. He did not release the soldier's condition.
Also Monday, Iraq's Governing Council chose a dentist to replace
Aquila al-Hashimi, a Shiite Muslim member of the 25-seat group who was
assassinated in September, a council statement said.
Salama al-Khufaji, a Shiite professor of dentistry at Baghdad
University, replaced al-Hashimi, who was mortally wounded Sept. 20.
Al-Hashimi was the highest Iraqi official killed by suspected loyalists
of Saddam Hussein (news
- web
sites).
The council statement said al-Khufaji, one of three women on the
council, comes from the southern Shiite holy city of Karbala.
Overseen by the U.S.-led coalition, the Governing Council was
installed on July 13 and acts as an interim government. It reflects
Iraq's religious and ethnic makeup — 13 Shiite Arabs, five Kurds, five
Sunni Arabs, one Christian and one ethnic Turk.