Saturday, October 25, 2008

war in iraq / 9 killed in firefights with GIs / Military says 4 U.S. soldiers die in roadside bombings

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(06-26) 04:00 PDT Bagdad --

Nine Iraki civilians were killed Wednesday in two firefights involving U.S. soldiers, local government reported. The military said American soldiers were fired upon first in both incidents.

Four U.S. soldiers also died in wayside bombings, the U.S. armed forces said, bringing to 10 the figure of Americans killed in Republic Of Iraq since Monday, according to the American Capital Post.

In the capital, three people were killed in a fiery clang after gunshot erupted as their vehicle passed U.S. soldiers from a convoy stopped near the Bagdad International Airport to retrieve a stalled vehicle.

Officials at Yarmouk Hospital identified the dead as a director and two female employees from a depository financial institution at the airport. Iraki police force also reported that two escorts were injured.

A statement from the U.S. armed forces characterized the three as felons who opened fire on the military convoy. The statement said the assault left slug holes in the U.S. vehicles and that a arm was recovered from the wreckage.

The at odds information in the two studies could not be immediately resolved.

Earlier Wednesday outside Tikrit, about 90 statute miles north of Baghdad, six people were killed and three injured in a farmhouse that was destroyed in a U.S. air strike, police force said. A U.S. land patrol called in the work stoppage after coming under fire.

Police said the farmer, Affar Ahmed Zidan, heard the patrol outside about 2:30 a.m. local clip and fired three warning shots in the air, thinking the soldiers were thieves.

Zidan then phoned police force force for aid while concealment under a tree, saying he feared the Americans would bomb, police said.

A neighbor, Tariq Azzawi, said Zidan was killed beside the tree, and his married woman and three children were killed in the house. The infirmary raised the toll to six.

A statement from the military said the patrol was fired upon and surveillance squads observed an armed adult male move into a nearby grouping of buildings. The air work stoppage was ordered when he refused to come up out.

The adult male was killed and four women were slightly injured, but a thorough hunt did not uncover any other deaths, the statement said.

In Washington, Iraki President Jalal Talabani met with President Shrub in the White Person House. Talabani's business office released a statement saying he praised Shrub as "a great friend of the Iraki people" and pledged to work toward a security understanding between the two countries.

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