Foreign troops targeted in fresh Iraq violence
Foreign troops targeted in fresh Iraq violence
Baghdad: Roadside bombs killed eight British and American soldiers and gunmen shot dead 10 Iraqi troops in one of the bloodiest 24 hours in Iraq for coalition and Iraqi security forces in recent months.
Four British soldiers and an interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb that destroyed their armoured fighting vehicle when they were ambushed on the outskirts of Basra, said British military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin Stratford-Wright.
"The unit was involved in an operation elsewhere. As they were on their way back from the operation it was targeted by a roadside bomb in conjunction with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades," he said from Basra. The nationality of the interpreter was not clear, he said.
The British military denied accusations by Iraqi police that British troops had stormed a police checkpoint close to the scene of the attack shortly afterwards and beaten some policemen. Six British soldiers have been killed in Iraq this week, making it one of the deadliest for British forces to date.
At least 140 British soldiers have been killed since the US-led invasion in March 2003. More than 3,260 US soldiers have been killed. Gunmen also killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and wounded one in an attack yesterday on their checkpoint near Mosul, an army source said.
Separately, four US soldiers were killed by two roadside bombs in and around Baghdad on Wednesday, the military said.
Also yesterday, a car bomb struck a Sunni television station in Baghdad, killing the station's assistant director and wounding 12 others, the political party that owns the station said. The attack against the Baghdad TV station occurred at about 1.30pm when a parked car exploded in front of the station in Baghdad's western neighbourhood of Jami'a, said Mahmoud Al Obaidi of the Iraqi Islamic Party.
Police in west Baghdad meanwhile found the bullet-riddled body of Khamael Mohsin, a famous television presenter during Saddam Hussain's rule, security officials said. She was kidnapped two days ago.
