Ambushes Thursday killed two US troops and two Iraqi civilians. Two American soldiers also were missing.
In the latest reported attack, a member of a U.S. special operations force was killed and eight were injured by Iraqi fire southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
Also Thursday, a U.S. military vehicle was ambushed on the western outskirts of Baghdad, and at least one American soldier and two Iraqis were killed.
The morning attack on the road leading to Baghdad International Airport in the Amiriyah neighborhood apparently involved an explosive device operated by remote control, said the U.S. soldiers, according to AP. An Iraqi civilian car was also damaged in the attack.
The soldier who died suffered a major wound in the face, the soldiers said.
In another ambush, two Iraqi employees of the national electricity authority were killed when their U.S.-led convoy came under a grenade attack in west Baghdad, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police said Thursday.
The convoy included U.S. Humvees at the front and the back and two Iraqi civilian vehicles in the middle. The soldiers and Iraqi police said the two Iraqis who were killed were traveling in the same car.
U.S. troops evacuated the two bodies from the badly damaged vehicle, which was covered with blood and broken glass.
Meanwhile, a search was under way Thursday for two U.S. soldiers and their Humvee missing in Baghdad, a senior Pentagon official said, AP reported.
It was the latest in a series of attacks against U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq. At least 19 U.S. soldiers have died in hostile fire since major combat was officially declared over in May. The Pentagon repeatedly has said the attacks were not the work of any organized resistance.
However, in a news broadcast early Thursday, the Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV read from a statement by a previously unheard of group calling itself the Mujahedeen of the Victorious Sect. The group warned Iraqis away from "places where the American forces are deployed" and promised more "painful attacks against the occupation forces in the near future."
The station also aired a video it said it received from the group, showing parts of a Baghdad neighborhood and what it said was an attack by the group against American military vehicles. (Albawaba.com)
