Iraqi Attacks Kill Two US Soldiers, Polish Officer as British Soldier Dies in Road Crash

Iraqi Attacks Kill Two US Soldiers, Polish Officer as British Soldier Dies in Road Crash
The US-led coalition said that two more American soldiers were killed in Iraq while an attack on a convoy claimed the first Polish fatality as strikes on coalition troops showed no sign of abating. One of the US soldiers was killed Thursday near Husaybah, on the border with Syria, 335 kilometers (210 miles) west of Baghdad. The other soldier died and two more were wounded Wednesday evening when assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at a US convoy near Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, the coalition said. A Polish officer was killed Thursday after an attack on a military convoy, the military said. "At 12:00 pm one Polish soldier was seriously wounded by small arms fire on a military convoy 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Karbala," a Shiite pilgrimage town in central Iraq, a coalition officer told AFP. "The soldiers in the convoy returned fire and the wounded soldier was immediately taken to a military hospital, but he died as a result of his wounds," he said. Poland commands a 9,000-strong multinational force patrolling a large swathe of central and southern Iraq and has 2,500 soldiers in the country, the fourth largest military contingent after the United States, Britain and Italy. In northern Iraq, police said an Iraqi interpreter working for US forces was wounded Thursday when assailants fired at a checkpoint manned by coalition soldiers and Iraqi police south of Kirkuk. **British Soldier Dies in Iraq Crash*** A British soldier has been killed in a road crash in southern Iraq, according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). An army spokesman confirmed the unnamed soldier died in the Basra following a road traffic accident. "There are no indications of hostile action and no other person or people were hurt. "We are unable to comment further until the soldier's next of kin have been informed," he said. **More US Troops for Iraq*** US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed orders to set in motion a force rotation next year that will send back US Marines along with active duty army and national guard and reserve units, a senior defense official said Wednesday. The rotation would involve the replacement of the bulk of the 132,000 US troops now in Iraq and will include some 35,000 to 45,000 national guard and reservists, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. US civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson on Thursday slammed his government's war on Iraq as having "no moral foundation" and warned of looming global crises and a cycle of violence brought on by US arrogance. The renowned black rights leader and former presidential candidate said there was "no future, no growth, no prosperity" in the violence killing US soldiers and Iraqi civilians, and stressed the war merely invites "blowback" on the American people. "The world believed that this war was about oil, not terrorism; about payback, not regime change; about destroying Saddam Hussein rather than destroying the weapons of mass destruction; about empire, not democracy," Jackson said in a speech at Bangkok's Thammasat University. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A Polish soldier checks his Armored Personnel Carrier just outside the ancient City of Babylon, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad, Iraq, in this July 16, 2003 file picture. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

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