Two American troops died in Iraq, the US military said on Friday. One was killed south of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, Thursday morning when a roadside bomb hit a US patrol. Another soldier was wounded in the attack.
The other US soldierwas killed in Babil, a province south of Baghdad, also on Thursday.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the performance of Iraqi security forces in an opinion published by The Wall Street Journal on Friday, writing that "many thousands of Iraqi security personnel are performing exceptionally."
"I am deeply impressed by the Iraqis' performance, just as I am of the American men and women in uniform," he wrote.
