IRAQ: A US soldier was killed and a comrade wounded in a roadside blast in Baghdad, according to the US military yesterday, while another bomb wounded a British soldier in the Iraqi southern city of Basra. No one claimed responsibility for the two attacks.
A US military spokeswoman said the soldier, from the 1st Armoured Division, was killed on Saturday evening when his vehicle hit an explosive device in central Baghdad.
In Basra, a bomb planted near a hospital was detonated yesterday as a British convoy drove past and one soldier was wounded in the hand, a spokesman said.
Meanwhile, several loud blasts echoed across Baghdad last night and police said a mortar bomb hit a house in the centre of the city, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Guerrillas have in the past week fired mortars at the headquarters of the US-led administration in Baghdad on the west side of the Tigris river. Residents said no one had been hurt and there appeared to be little damage.
The American who died earlier yesterday was the 150th US soldier killed in action in Iraq since May 1st, when President Bush declared major combat over in the war which ousted Saddam Hussein. Washington blames attacks on US forces on die-hard supporters of Saddam and foreign Muslim militants.
British troops in mainly Shia Muslim southern Iraq have faced far fewer attacks than US forces in Baghdad and the surrounding "Sunni triangle" region.
On Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was temporarily closing its offices in Baghdad and Basra. That evening guerrillas attempted a mortar attack on the headquarters of the US-led administration in Baghdad for the third time in a week. One round landed near a railway station not far from the administration complex but there were no casualties, Iraqi police at the scene said.
US soldiers around Saddam's home town of Tikrit, 175 km north of Baghdad, have launched a new drive in the hostile Sunni Muslim territory north of Baghdad to hunt down guerrillas and senior Saddam loyalists. The army said Operation Ivy Cyclone would involve aggressive raids to root out resistance to the US-led occupation forces.
On Friday night, US F-16 fighter planes dropped 500-lb bombs on suspected guerrilla hideouts around Tikrit. It was the first time aircraft had been used in bombing raids since May 1st.