BAGHDAD — A barrage of rockets targeting an American military base in southern Iraq on Wednesday morning killed three U.S. soldiers, bringing to 12 the number of Americans killed in Iraq in the past three days.
The four rockets that crashed down on Combat Outpost Adder also wounded two other U.S. soldiers and one civilian, said Navy Lt. Patrick Evans.
The military reported another soldier died, and two more were wounded, on Tuesday near Diwaniyah when a roadside bomb exploded during a combat patrol.
At least 3,987 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
A poll showed Wednesday that fewer Americans know how many U.S. troops have died in the war. Only 28 percent correctly said that about 4,000 Americans have died, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
In previous Pew surveys dating to 2004, about half have correctly given the approximate figure.
In the new poll, roughly a third said about 3,000 U.S. troops have died while about one in 10 said 2,000 deaths. About a quarter put the figure close to 5,000.
Also Wednesday, conflicting accounts emerged about an explosion that killed 16 passengers on a bus that was traveling near Nasiriyah. The bus driver and a passenger asserted that passing American soldiers opened fire on them, a charge that U.S. military officials denied.
The bus was carrying about 60 people as an American military supply convoy drove past them, according to passengers. An explosion tore into the driver’s side of the bus and blew out the other side.
The U.S. military said in a statement that a shaped-charge roadside bomb known as an “explosively formed penetrator” slammed into the bus and the convoy, wounding a U.S. soldier.
But the driver and a passenger said they believed the American soldiers opened fire on the bus after it had already safely passed what they were later told was where a roadside bomb had exploded. They said their bus was struck with bullets seconds before they were hit with an explosion they believed was some sort of rocket or grenade fired from the American Humvees.
“The Americans shot us,” the passenger said. “One hundred percent it was the Americans.”
“We absolutely did not fire on the bus,” said Maj. Brad Leighton. “Absolutely not.”
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