A roadside bomb hit a U.S. convoy in southern Baghdad, killing one soldier and injuring six others Wednesday. The U.S. military also reported that an American soldier died Wednesday night of injuries sustained in a vehicle accident near Kirkuk.
In other incidents, gunmen killed at least eight Iraqis in four separate attacks Thursday, officials said. In one incident, unidentified men in a speeding car wielding machine guns killed local police commander Col. Fadil Mahmoud Mohammed and his driver Thursday morning near the city of Baquba north of Baghdad, police said.
According to The AP, six people died in the Iraqi capital, including a man and two of his sons whose home in the New Baghdad area was raided by about 25 gunmen dressed in police uniforms and black masks, said police Col. Ahmed Abod. A second son was nabbed.
In another drive-by shooting Thursday, two policemen patrolling in northeast Baghdad were shot dead, said police Col. Ahmed al-Alawi.
In the southern Iraqi city of Basra, British soldiers reduced their presence in the streets Thursday, apparently responding to a call from the provincial governor to sever cooperation until London apologized for storming a police station to free two of its soldiers. In an interview with the Associated Press Thursday, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie called Monday's attack by British forces on a police station in Basra "a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty."
