US tank attacked, 2 soldiers die in Iraq
Reuters, Baghdad
The US post-war combat death toll in Iraq climbed past the number of soldiers killed during the invasion when the US military said yesterday it had lost two more dead in a roadside bomb north of Baghdad. Their deaths brought to 116 the number of US troops killed in hostilities since US President Bush declared major combat over on May 1, surpassing the 115 killed in the war launched on March 20 to topple Saddam Hussein. The sombre statistic -- no reliable figures are available for the many more Iraqis killed in the conflict -- underlines the scale of the resistance that US forces have stirred since they burst into Iraq more than seven months ago. A spokesman for the US Army's 4th Infantry Division said the two soldiers died and one was wounded when their vehicle hit an explosive device about 120 km (75 miles) north of Baghdad late Tuesday. Guerrillas have not aimed only at US troops who spearheaded the invasion that Bush said was to protect the world from Iraq's so far unfound weapons of mass destruction. Three land mine blasts wounded seven Ukrainian soldiers, part of a Polish-led multinational division operating south of Baghdad, Tuesday. A Ukraine Defence Ministry spokesman said the mines had hit two armoured vehicles during a night patrol. Those fighting the US-led occupation seem determined to spread chaos, foil reconstruction efforts and punish foreigners and Iraqis seen as linked to the Americans. Monday, suicide bombers blasted the headquarters of the Red Cross and three stations of the US-backed police, killing 35 people and wounding more than 200, a day after attackers rocketed a fortress hotel where US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying, killing a US soldier. A car bomber targeted a police station in Falluja, west of the capital, Tuesday, killing at least four people. The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was to hold a news conference at 3 p.m. GMT in response to the attack on its offices, which has forced other humanitarian agencies to agonise over how they can operate in Iraq. The ICRC's spokeswoman in Baghdad, Nada Doumani, has said it will not quit Iraq after 23 years of uninterrupted work, but has not ruled out a further cut in international staff. Bush has blamed "foreign terrorists" and forces loyal to Saddam for the unrelenting violence.
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