BAGHDAD, Iraq — Roadside bombs killed two American soldiers in separate attacks Monday, and the U.S. military reported that an American civilian with a Christian religious group was killed in a weekend ambush in southern Iraq.
The first bomb attack took place in Baqubah, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. The bomb struck a convoy, killing a soldier from Task Force Iron Horse and wounding four others. The military said two Iraqis were arrested and investigators were trying to determine whether a cellphone was used to detonate the device.
The other soldier, with the 1st Armored Division, was killed in an attack on a convoy less than half an hour later in Baghdad. One soldier was wounded, officials said.
Roadside bombs have proved the most lethal tactic used against U.S. troops in Iraq. The deaths brought to 540 the number of U.S. soldiers confirmed to have died in the country since the United States invaded in March.
The military said the U.S. civilian was killed Saturday when gunmen in a white sedan opened fire on a taxi carrying a religious group from the site of the ancient city of Babylon to Baghdad. He was identified as John Kelley, a pastor from Rhode Island, according to the Associated Press. Three other people in the car were wounded, the military said. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military spokesman in Baghdad, declined to identify the group.
Also Monday, a grenade exploded near an elementary school in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Baghdad, killing two Iraqis and wounding three others, Kimmitt said. An ordnance team found an unexploded device nearby, he said.
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