Three American troops were killed during fighting in Najaf, a military spokeswoman said Monday. Two were killed Sunday when US soldiers came under fire by fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr in Najaf, Marine Captain Carrie Batson said, according to AP. A third American attached to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, deployed in Anbar province, was also killed Sunday.
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb killed three members of the Iraqi National Guard on Monday, while two civilians died in a mortar attack north of the Iraqi capital, witnesses said.
The three guardsmen were killed when a bomb exploded near their vehicle in an industrial section of Baqouba, some 55 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, The AP reported.
Also Monday, two civilians were killed and four were injured when a mortar shell struck their house, said Ali Hussein, a medic at the main hospital in Baqouba.
In another development, a French-American journalist was kidnapped in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television reported.
The journalist was reportedly a citizen of both France and the United States, but was not otherwise identified. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
