At Least 10 US Soldiers Killed in Iraq Clashes

18/04/2004| IslamWeb

Ten US troops including at least five US marines in Iraq were killed in clashes and attacks in various parts of the country, the US Army reported Sunday. According to St. Louis Post-Dispatch, five marines were killed and nine injured Saturday in an intense 14-hour battle with nearly 300 Iraqi fighters near the border town of Husaybah. It addedd some 300 fighters west of Baghdad launched an offensive early Saturday against the marines in an outpost near Husaybah. Initially, they set off a roadside bomb to lure Americans out of their base and then fired 24 mortar rounds as the marines responded to the attack, the Post-Dispatch said. Late Saturday night, Cobra helicopter gunships were still strafing "enemy" positions around the soccer stadium near downtown Husaybah while medical evacuation helicopters carried injured marines back to Camp Al Qaim, according to the report. Elsewhere, a US soldier died of his wounds after a convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad, the military said. The soldier was evacuated after the attack at about 10:00 a.m. on Saturday but later died of his wounds, according to a military statement. "Three soldiers traveling in a 1st Armored Division convoy were killed during a small arms ambush" near the southern city of Diwaniyah around 7:00 pm, the military said in a statement. Another army statement, quoted by AFP, said "a soldier assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed yesterday as a result of enemy action in the Al Anbar Province," west of the Iraqi capital. Meanwhile, two British troops were wounded in southeastern Iraq when their convoy came under fire, the defense ministry said Sunday. "They were travelling in a convoy with members of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps and they were fired upon" Saturday night in the town of Al Amarah, a ministry spokesman said. **PHOTO CAPTION*** An Iraqi celebrate in front of a burning US tanker after it was attacked with rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). (AFP/File/Antonio Scorza)