BAGHDAD — In a daring ambush, insurgents blasted a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb Monday and showered survivors with gunfire from a mosque in increasingly lawless Mosul. Five American soldiers were killed in the explosion.
Iraqi reinforcements, along with helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles, converged on Mosul for what Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged would be a decisive battle against al-Qaida in its last major urban stronghold.
After the roadside bomb blew apart the American vehicle, killing the five soldiers, gunmen opened fire from a mosque. A fierce gunbattle erupted as U.S. and Iraqi soldiers secured the area, the military said. Iraqi troops entered the mosque but the insurgents had already fled, according to a statement.
U.S. commanders have described Mosul as the last major Iraqi city with a significant al-Qaida presence, although they have warned insurgents remain a potent force in rural areas south and northeast of Baghdad.
But the military has said Iraqi security forces will take the lead in the city, a major test of Washington’s plans to someday shrink the American force and leave it as backup for Iraqi security forces.
There was other fighting in the Mosul neighborhood. An Iraqi officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said three civilians were wounded and helicopters bombarded buildings in the district, the scene of frequent attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Insurgents attacked four police officers heading home from work south of Mosul, killing two and wounding the other two, Nineveh provincial police said.
Also Monday, Iranian media reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will make a historic trip to Iraq sometime before March 19, the first such visit ever by an Iranian leader.
The two neighbors fought a ruinous eight-year war in the 1980s that left an estimated 1 million people killed or wounded. But relations have improved since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The U.S. military says Iran is arming, training and bankrolling Shiite militiamen in Iraq who have used Iranian-supplied roadside bombs to kill hundreds of American soldiers. Iran denies the charge.
U.S. military deaths
The latest identifications reported by the U.S. military of personnel killed in Iraq:
Army Sgt. Tracy Renee Birkman, 41, New Castle, Va.; died Friday in Owesat from a noncombat related incident; was assigned to the 626th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.
Army Pfc. Duncan Charles Crookston, 19, Denver; died Friday of wounds sustained from an explosion in Baghdad; was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
Army Staff Sgt. Robert J. Wilson, Boynton Beach, Fla.; died Saturday of wounds suffered from an explosive in Baghdad; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.
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