American troops in the northern city of Mosul shot and killed fourIraqis suspected of involvement in attacks in the region, the US military said Monday. Two occupation soldiers were injured in the firefight.
The fighting came hours after attackers fired on a convoy carrying a government minister and the separate killings of a Canadian and Briton in the region.
The four Iraqis were killed late Sunday in a firefight with a U.S. military police patrol, the military said in a statement, cited by The AP. The troops had stopped the Iraqis' car because it matched the description of one used in an earlier drive-by shooting at U.S. forces in the city.
Inside the vehicle, soldiers found assault rifles, a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher and other weapons. The statement said U.S. and Iraqi security forces were investigating to see whether the dead "were involved in any of the recent attacks against Iraqi government officials, Iraqi security forces or coalition soldiers."
Two soldiers were injured in the fighting, the statement said.
The attack earlier Sunday on the convoy of Iraq's minister of public works, Nisreen Berwari, left the driver and a bodyguard dead and two others wounded. The attack took place when Berwari, who was unhurt, was returning to Mosul from a meeting in the city of Dohuk, said Kristi Clemens, a spokeswoman for the occupation authorities in Baghdad.
Saro Qader, an official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, described the incident as an "assassination attempt."
Meanwhile, the bodies of four women, three men and a baby were found in a house in the northern city of Kirkuk, police chief Torhan Abdul Rahman said. The eight were shot to death about a month ago.
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
