Iraqi fighters ambushed a military convoy in western Iraq near the border with Syria, killing two US troops, the military said Sunday.
The attackers opened fire on the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment task force with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades near the border town of Husaybah, some 300 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, the statement said.
One soldier was also wounded in the attack.
The attack took place in the same day as Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the U.S. commander in Iraq, said attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq have dropped some 30 percent in the past two weeks, from a daily average of 35 to 22. On the worst days earlier this month, there were as many as 50 attacks a day, Sanchez said.
The deaths brought to 79 the number of U.S. soldiers to die in Iraq during November.
In the meantime, two South Korean were killed and two others wounded when their car was attacked on a highway south of Saddam Hussein's ancestral hometown of Tikrit, Reuters reported.
The men were believed to be electricity workers on contract to a U.S. firm.
Elsewhere, a Colombian civilian contractor was shot dead and two colleagues injured in an attack on a convoy in northern Iraq, a US army commander said Sunday.
"Yesterday morning near Balad one civilian contractor, a citizen of Colombia, was killed and two associates were wounded when attackers using small calibre weapons fired on a convoy," US military deputy director for operations Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a Baghdad press conference.
In Spain, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar on Sunday vowed that his country would stay in Iraq despite the killing of seven intelligence agents the day before.
In an address to the nation, Aznar said Spain would not alter course after committing 1,300 troops to Iraqi reconstruction in August.
"Freedom is under threat from the terrorists," said Aznar, according to AFP.
Despite opposition calls for the Spanish contingent to be brought home Aznar stated: "We will fulfil our commitments with loyalty and serenity." "They lost their lives doing their duty as professional soldiers, good soldiers working for peace and security.
"Free nations are in Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people from a terrible tyranny and combat an international terrorist network which threatens our whole way of life and freedom."
Aznar insisted the world community had to face up to the issue "with all means at our disposal," adding that the "presence on the ground of the CNI (intelligence) agents is essential to combat terrorism." (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
