Three British soldiers sent to reinforce American troops in a dangerous area near Baghdad were killed in a suicide car bomb attack, the British government said yesterday, raising the prospect of a political backlash for Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mr Blair dispatched the troops north from the comparatively quiet British-patrolled sector of southern Iraq last month, in a decision hotly debated in parliament. Critics have said the controversy surrounding the 30-day deployment would make the troops a tempting target for militants seeking to inflict a blow on British morale.
"I can confirm to the House that in an attack on British forces in the Black Watch area of operations we have suffered a number of casualties, including three fatalities," junior Defence Minister Adam Ingram told the House of Commons.
Later Mr Ingram said the men died when a suicide car bomber drove up to their check-point and detonated his vehicle. A television pool reporter embedded with the Black Watch said a civilian translator was also killed and eight soldiers hurt.
Last night US forces launched heavy air and artillery strikes on the rebel-held Iraqi city of Falluja, according to witnesses, in what may be the start of the long-expected full-scale assault on rebels there.
Insurgents responded with fierce mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attacks against US positions on the edge of the city.
Overnight on Wednesday, US artillery shells killed five people there. The US military said two air raids destroyed "fighting barricades" prepared by rebels.
The strikes followed what witnesses called an intense half-hour bombardment of eastern and north-western areas by AC-130 planes and tanks that shook the city late on Wednesday night. They said the attacks were the heaviest for several weeks.
Hospital doctor Ahmed Mohammed said five people had been killed, including a woman and a child. All had been in a car hit in an air raid while trying to escape the violence.
Further underlining the rapid deterioration in security in Iraq, Médecins sans Frontières, one of the few remaining international aid groups, said it was quitting the country due the "extreme risk" to aid workers.
Mr Blair agreed to send about 850 troops, mainly from the Black Watch regiment, to the areas near Baghdad to allow US troops to reinforce units fighting guerrillas in Falluja and elsewhere.
A spokeswoman for Mr Blair said the Prime Minister's thoughts were with the families of those killed.
The deaths brought the toll of British troops killed in Iraq to 70. It was the worst incident since three soldiers were killed in August 2003.
A reporter from London's Times, contributing to a British media pool embedded with the Black Watch, said the unit had come under repeated rocket attacks at its camp.
A Warrior fighting vehicle had been disabled by a roadside bomb on Wednesday and a second Warrior sent to its aid was driven off the road by a mortar attack, the pool report said. It did not make clear if that was the incident in which the men were killed.
The Scotland-based unit has been trying to lower tension by playing down its Britishness, handing out flyers which read "please allow me to introduce myself - I am a Scottish soldier with the Black Watch Regiment".
The flyers have a Scottish flag rather than a British one.
But the soldiers said their presence attracts attacks.
The Times pool reporter wrote that Black Watch officers had found themselves comforting a crowd of more than a hundred distraught schoolchildren and a furious teacher whose way home was blocked by the soldiers.
"The teacher is very angry because we're bringing danger to the children," said Capt Jono Kelmanson.
"By us being here, we attract the terrorists into the area. She's quite right, and if we knew it was a school we would have got the timing better." - (Reuters)