Nine US Soldiers Killed in Iraq Attacks

A US military convoy was attacked near the city of Fallujah, witnesses and US military sources said.

A correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the ground, quoting witnesses at the scene of the ambush in the town of Saqlawiya on the northern outskirts of Fallujah, said at least six marines were killed and eight wounded.

US military sources confirmed the toll and said more casualties were feared.

Witnesses reported seeing two US military vehicles ablaze after a loud explosion, helicopters buzzed overhead. Marines blocked off the road.

"I heard a very loud explosion I rushed to see what was going on. I saw two Humvees on fire. Then a US helicopter came down to carry the bodies and the wounded," said Othman Jabr,28 , from Saqlawiya.

Saqlawiya has been a cauldron of anti-American sentiment, due to continued air raids on residential areas.

Twenty Iraqis, including three children were killed and six others injured Wednesday, September1 , in a US air strike on two buildings in the city.

The deaths also included one woman and one elderly man after the raid on the city, populated by300 ,000.

In April, at least 700 Iraqis, mostly women and children, were killed and 1500 others injured when the US occupation forces imposed a tight siege on Fallujah and intensified air strikes on its densely-populated areas.

US forces were stationed by Saqlawiya this spring and marines nicknamed their outpost Camp Suicide because of the nightly mortar fire.

Two More Casualties

Meanwhile, the US forces said in a statement a mortar attack on an American base near Baghdad Sunday killed two American soldiers and wounded16 .

It said one of those wounded in the attack Sunday evening was in critical condition.

Major Richard Spiegel of the Army’s13 th Corps Support Command was quoted by the Associated Press as saying the mortar barrage hit the Logistical Base Seitz, on Baghdad’s western outskirts.

The soldiers killed and wounded all belonged to the Army’s13 th Corps Support Command, which oversees distribution of military fuel, food, water and other supplies to US forces across Iraq.

Also Monday, a car bomb exploded outside an air base used by US forces near Dijiel, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, injuring one American soldier and two Iraqi civilians, the US military were quoted by the AP as saying.

The attacks came as press reports say the number of US military casualties in Iraq is steadily growing as the American forces are still facing uphill resistance in various areas of the country.

Sadr Office Surrounded

In other developments across the turbulent country, Iraqi security forces were surrounding the office of Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr in the holy Shiite city of Najaf Monday.

"The Iraqi national guard and police forces have encircled the office since this morning and are attempting to raid it," Sheikh Ahmed Shaibani said.

He said Sadr officials had prevented Iraqi forces from entering the premises and are demanding an authorisation signed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani before they will allow the office to be searched.

But the siege was later lifted after the intervention of Sistani, whose mediation had ended an earlier standoff in the holy city.

Two Women Killed

Back to bloody events, a woman was killed and seven other people wounded late Sunday in a fierce clash which broke out after a US convoy was ambushed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police said.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Hashem Ahmed Shihab gave the toll from Mosul general hospital’s police station.

The gunmen fired about a dozen anti-tank rockets at the convoy, witnesses said.

US troops returned fire and the ensuing battle lasted almost half an hour.

Also, a Norwegian woman married to an Iraqi Kurd is believed to have been shot dead in an attack in Suleimaniya in northern Iraq, her family told a Norwegian newspaper in an article published Monday.

Marita Stroem,38 , is presumed to have been killed by an unidentified attacker while she was driving her car, her sister, Tove Stroem, told the paper quoting information she had received from Kurdish relatives.

"That’s all we know and that she is supposedly dead. We are shocked and the uncertainty is terrible. We hope that Marita is alive but at the same time we fear the worst," Tove Stroem told the local newspaper Namdalsavisa.

Marita Stroem was on holiday with her husband, Osman Omar Osman, and their three daughters when the shooting occurred, according to Osman’s sister who reported the death to the Norwegian family Saturday.

The couple’s mobile phones were not reachable.

Pipeline Bombed

In northern Iraq, a pipeline supplying gas to a major electrical plant south of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk was attacked Monday, a local police official said.

"This morning at11 : 25( 0725GMT), unknown attackers set fire to a gas pipeline in the Taza region" some 20 kilometres ( 12miles) south of Kirkuk, police colonel Ali Mustashar al-Obeidi said.

Sabah Shaku, an official for the Northern Electricity Co told AFP that the attack "had had serious consequences for the Bayji electrical plant which produces 400 megawatts per day and supplies the whole of northern Iraq."

The oil pipelines have been attacked by Iraqi fighters, as ordinary Iraqis question the US claims for invading the country’s which has the world’s second largest reserves.

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq more than one and a half year of occupation, raising fears the invasion was based on false pretends.