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| Tuesday, 4 May 2004 |
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Nine US troops die in Iraq; trucker slips away from captors BAGHDAD, Monday (AFP) Nine US soldiers were killed in Iraq Sunday but an American truck driver who escaped after three weeks as a hostage brought some relief to US occupation forces battling a scandal over the abuse of prisoners. Six of the new dead were killed in a mortar attack on a military base, which also left 30 wounded. A mortar landed just inside a US base near Ramadi, 100 kilometers (65 miles) west of Baghdad into a group of soldiers, an officer said. Another US soldier died in a bomb and small arms attack on a coalition military base near the northern city of Kirkuk, according to the military. Two US soldiers died in a predawn attack in northwestern Baghdad, a military spokesman said, in which a US soldier and two members of the paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defense Corps were wounded. More than 750 US troops have now been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March last year. More than 10,000 Iraqis are estimated to have died. Meanwhile civilian truck driver Thomas Hamill, 43, who was abducted April 9, brought a note of cheer amid a wave of grim news for US forces. Hammill slipped away from his captors and met a US patrol some 65 kilometers (40 miles) outside Baghdad. Earlier UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said meanwhile a UN-sanctioned multinational force will help maintain security in Iraq after the power transfer June 30. Poland's prime minister-designate, Marek Belka, signalled that Polish troops would remain in Iraq despite growing calls for a withdrawal. Britain was prepared to send up to 4,000 troops to Iraq, the British weekly, the Sunday Telegraph, said. The first troops were to arrive in the next few weeks to plug the gap left by the withdrawal of Spain's 1,432 troops in Iraq, the newspaper said. Annan also said that UN employees will be stripped of their immunity and be "dealt with severely" if a probe finds they were involved in corruption in the Iraq oil-for-food program under which Iraq, under UN supervision, was allowed to sell some oil to buy food. |
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