BAGHDAD, Iraq – Insurgents attacked British troops at a checkpoint in central Iraq on Thursday, killing three and wounding eight in a suicide bomb and mortar barrage aimed at soldiers sent to the high-risk area to free U.S. forces for an assault on the militant stronghold Fallujah.
U.S. troops pounded Fallujah with airstrikes and artillery fire, softening up militants ahead of the expected assault. Loudspeakers at Fallujah mosques blared out Quranic verses and shouts of “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” during the assault, residents said.
The three British soldiers were from the Black Watch regiment, which was moved last month from relatively quiet southern Iraq to the dangerous area just south of Baghdad.
Scottish Nationalist Party spokesman Angus Robertson warned that the deaths would have “profound implications” for public opinion in Scotland, where the Black Watch regiment is recruited.
An Iraqi interpreter also was killed in the attack, British officials said. Britain’s armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, said in London that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in a vehicle and that the British checkpoint also came under mortar fire.
The deaths bring the number of British troops killed in Iraq to 73. It was the worst single combat loss for the British since three Royal Military Police were killed in the southern city of Basra in August 2003.
Also on Thursday:
* A suicide car bomber also targeted a U.S. Marine convoy near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, but only the attacker died in the explosion, U.S. officials said.
* An Iraqi known for cooperating with Americans was killed near Ramadi, police said. The assailants stopped a car carrying Sheik Bezei Ftaykhan, ordered the driver to leave and pumped about 30 bullets into the sheik’s body, police said.
* A suicide car bomber killed three and wounded nine when his explosive-laden vehicle barreled into city government offices in Dujail, 50 miles north of the capital, police said.
U.S. military deaths
Latest identification reported by the military of U.S. personnel killed in Iraq:
Army Sgt. Charles Webb, 22, Hamilton, Ohio; killed Wednesday by an explosive in Baghdad; assigned to the 82nd Engineer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized), Bamberg, Germany.
U.S. military deaths
Latest identification reported by the military of U.S. personnel killed in Iraq:
Army Sgt. Charles Webb, 22, Hamilton, Ohio; killed Wednesday by an explosive in Baghdad; assigned to the 82nd Engineer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized), Bamberg, Germany.
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