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.

In the shadow of the war in Iraq

Rhonda Capital Of Texas visits her son's grave almost daily.

Pfc. Alan Capital Of Texas was killed in Islamic State Of Afghanistan seven calendar months ago and his female parent said her heartache is still fresh. She shouts when she sees his photos or his military medals.

She's defeat especially when she sees news studies that focusing on the warfare in Iraq, mentioning small or nil about the combat in Afghanistan.

Her boy died in a Humvee rollover accident Aug. 12.

"It's kind of like military people in other parts of the human race are forgotten," she said. "I believe in the same breath we should advert Republic Of Republic Of Iraq and Afghanistan."

Austin is one of respective people who have got said that the mass media focusing on Iraq is to the hurt of news insurance in Afghanistan. She said she understands why Republic Of Republic Of Iraq have grabbed newspaper headlines — many more than military personnel are in Iraq than in Afghanistan.

So far, 100 Houston-area armed forces service members have got died in Iraq.

Eight service members with neckties to the Houston country have got died in Afghanistan.

As of Tuesday, more than than 4,000 U.S. armed forces force have got got died in Iraq, while about 500 have died in and around Islamic State Of Afghanistan as of Saturday, according to the Department of Defense.

Worthy of coverageTroop degrees fluctuate weekly, but as of this hebdomad 163,000 U.S. military personnel were serving in Republic Of Iraq and 31,000 were in Afghanistan.

Just because more than military members have got died in Iraq, Capital Of Texas said, doesn't intend that those who died in Islamic State Of Afghanistan are less worthy of coverage.

"Their lives are not deserving less no substance what the Numbers are," she said.

Some other Houston-area households who have got got had loved 1s killed in Islamic State Of Afghanistan have similar concerns. However, like Austin, they are speedy to add that they understand the importance of both military campaigns.

The households said their loved ones' friends and chap armed forces members often name them to offer support.

"Maybe there could be more than said and done to do acknowledgment for those soldiers," said Chester A. Arthur Craig, father of Army Staff Sgt. Brian T. Craig, 27, of Houston, who was killed April 15, 2002, in Islamic State Of Afghanistan while dismantling confiscated rockets.

Yet, Craig said he understands that Republic Of Iraq looks more than than volatile than Afghanistan, but that may be changing and more news insurance will be given to it.

A U.S.-led allied military unit invaded Islamic State Of Afghanistan about one calendar month after the Sept. 11, 2001, panic onslaughts because Osama bin Laden, who have acknowledged duty for the attacks, was tracked to mountainous countries in the country.

Also, the Taliban government opinion Islamic State Of Afghanistan supported bin Laden's terrorist organization, al-Qaida.

However, mass media experts state Republic Of Iraq dominated news insurance once U.S.-led alliance forced invaded that state in 2003 to tumble Saddam Hussein.

In 2007, for instance, 16 percentage of the news insurance concerned Republic Of Iraq while less than 1 percentage focused on Afghanistan, said Uncle Tom Rosenstiel, manager of the Undertaking for Excellence in Journalism.

So far, this year, Republic Of Iraq dominated Islamic State Of Afghanistan 6 to 1 in news coverage.

The group's figs are based on an analysis of 48 news mercantile establishments in web television, newspapers, cable, online and radio.

Stretched thinRosenstiel said news organisations are having a difficult clip staffing both warfares and that the Islamic State Of Afghanistan warfare also have received less attending because it have never been as controversial as the invasion of Iraq.

He said few people questioned the ground of going to Islamic State Of Afghanistan to happen bin Laden and tumble the Taliban, but diverting resources from that missionary post to occupy Republic Of Iraq have been criticized.

"The fact is that it is the forgotten portion of the warfare on terror," Rosenstiel said.

Media insurance of the two struggles is correspondent to the news studies about Hurricane Katrina, said Roy Simon Peter Clark, senior scholarly person at the Poynter Institute, a news mass media school in St. Petersburg, Fla.

People in Mississippi, for example, felt that the media focused more than attending on New Orleans and begged the state not to bury them.

President Shrub and military functionaries have got said that success in Islamic State Of Afghanistan is the 1 of the nation's ends and it won't be forgotten.

Officials recently have got said that if troop backdowns in Republic Of Iraq are possible, some of those resources could be shifted to Islamic State Of Afghanistan to support military units there.

"People acknowledge the effects of not being successful (in Afghanistan)," Secretary of Defense Henry Martin Robert Bill Gates said during a news conference April 11. "And I believe very strongly that whoever is elected president is going to desire to be successful in Afghanistan."

Rhonda Capital Of Texas said she is proud of her son. He loved being a soldier and believed in what he was doing in Afghanistan.

She said he signed his letters to her "Your American Soldier."

Tuesday afternoon, she looked through a box of military hats, photos, books, decoration citations, postings and his other personal points the Army sent to her after he died.

"It's a small hard," she said. "Sometimes I'm just OK. Sometimes I'm not."

US soldier in Iraq killed by roadside bomb, military says

: The U.S. armed forces states an American soldier have been killed in Republic Of Iraq by a wayside bomb.

The military states the onslaught occurred in Salahuddin state in cardinal Republic Of Iraq on Monday.

The soldier's personal identity hasn't been released pending presentment of relatives.

In all, at least 4,033 members of the U.S. armed forces have got died since the Republic Of Iraq warfare started in March 2003. That's according to an Associated Press count.

Iraq: US military says 3 insurgents killed, 19 captured in raids along Tigris River valley

: U.S. military units killed three suspected insurrectionists and captured 19 Thursday inch forays targeting al-Qaida in Republic Of Iraq along the Tigris River River valley, the military said.

In one operation North of Baghdad, military personnel captured a adult male suspected of engagement in planning auto bomb attacks, the military said in a statement. Five more than suspects were also detained, and an armed adult male was killed during the operation near Khalis, 80 kilometres (50 miles) North of Baghdad, it said.

Meanwhile south of the capital, American soldiers captured another wanted adult male near Youssifiyah, the military said. He is suspected of being associated with al-Qaida inch Iraq, and of planning onslaughts on U.S. military personnel in the area, it said. The adult male came forward and identified himself to land troops, who arrested him and another suspect, the statement said.

Two work force were killed inch Mosul, 360 kilometres (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, in an operation targeting an alleged al-Qaida in Republic Of Iraq leader, the military said. One of the men, armed with a knife, lunged at U.S. military personnel as they entered a building. Soldiers shot and killed him, along with another adult male in the edifice who was wrapped in cover with wires protruding from it, the military said.

It did not state whether the intended mark was among six suspects captured there, nor whether the wires in the cover were subsequently identified as explosives. Today in Africa & Center East

Five more than suspects were detained North of Beiji, 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of Baghdad, the statement said.