BAGHDAD — A suicide truck bomber who concealed his explosives under tanned animal hides struck a U.S. patrol base today in northern Iraq, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding 18 other Americans, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
Two Iraqi contractors working at the base in Tamim province also were wounded, according to a brief statement from the military.
Tamim has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital. Three American soldiers were killed Wednesday by gunfire in Tamim.
Brig. Sarhat Qadir, a senior officer in the Kirkuk police department, said the bomber targeted a U.S. patrol base in a mostly Sunni Arab residential area in Rashad, about 25 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
The suicide attacker rammed his vehicle into blast walls outside the gates of the small U.S. base, located in a residential neighborhood of Sunni Arabs, Qadir said. He added that the explosives were concealed under tanned animal hides.
Earlier, the U.S. military issued a statement saying an American soldier died late Saturday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad.
At least 4,094 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In Baghdad, four police recruits were killed in a blast at the National Police headquarters, authorities said.
Another 22 people were wounded near the building’s gate where recruits were gathering, they said. Police gave conflicting reports about whether the attack used mortars or a roadside bomb.
A mortar shell landed just outside Baghdad’s Green Zone today, killing three civilians and wounding seven others, police said. The mortar was apparently targeting the Defense Ministry, which is inside the U.S.-guarded diplomatic zone, but fell short, they said.
Mortar and rocket attacks were once a daily occurrence in the Green Zone in central Baghdad, but have fallen off in recent weeks.
Another civilian was killed by a roadside bomb today in northern Baghdad, police said. Five others were wounded in the attack, which took place about 100 yards from the Turkish Embassy. The target was believed to be a passing police patrol and not the embassy building.
Meanwhile, six shepherds were killed execution-style before dawn today by suspected militants linked to al-Qaida masquerading as fellow herders east of Baghdad, police said.
The killings took place in a sprawling desert area where such militants are believed to have sought refuge after U.S.-Iraqi offensives against them in western Anbar province and in Baghdad, police said.
In Basra, Shiite extremists fired 10 rockets this morning at the British base at the city’s airport in the first attack there in nearly a month. No casualties were reported, but the attack raised concern that Shiite militias were trying to regroup after U.S. and British-backed Iraqi forces gained control of the city from extremists.
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