11 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq; hostage escapes

American truck driver flees captors three weeks after being abducted

Eleven U.S. troops were killed in attacks across Iraq, including a mortar barrage today in which six Americans died and 30 others were wounded. Meanwhile, kidnapped U.S. truck driver Thomas Hamill escaped his Iraqi captors, prying open a door of the house where he was held when an American patrol passed by.

Running a kilometre to the patrol, Hamill identified himself and led the soldiers to the house, where two Iraqis with an automatic weapon were arrested, a military spokesman said.

The 43-year-old native of Macon, Miss., escaped more than three weeks after he was abducted by gunmen who blasted the convoy he was driving in the outskirts of Baghdad. An American soldier was abducted in the same attack - and remains missing - and at least four of Hamill’s co-workers from a subsidiary of Halliburton were killed.

Hamill had not been heard from since the day after the April 9 attack, when his kidnappers released a video of him standing in front of an Iraqi flag and threatened to kill him within 12 hours unless the United States ended its siege of Fallujah.

Hamill’s wife, Kellie, was called at 5:30 a.m. with the news of his escape, and later spoke to her husband. "He sounded wonderful, so wonderful. He said he was fine," she told The Associated Press from their Mississippi home. "He said he was more worried about his mom, his grandmother, me and our kids."

The latest attacks brought the U.S. death toll to 151 since a wave of violence began on April 1. At least 753 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

The deadliest incident came Sunday afternoon when a barrage of mortars hit a U.S. base near the city of Ramadi, 100 kilometres west of the capital, an area patrolled by marines. Six service members were killed and 30 others were wounded, the military said.

An attack in northwest Baghdad killed two other soldiers and wounded two Iraqi security officers and another American, the military said.

One U.S. soldier was killed and 10 were wounded when insurgent set off bombs and opened fire on a coalition base near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, the U.S. military said.

Overnight, Shiite militiamen attacked a U.S. convoy with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades near the southern city of Amarah, 300 kilometres south of Baghdad. Two soldiers were killed, the military said. Through the night and into Sunday morning, Iraqis set fire to the long line of abandoned vehicles, jumping on the hoods and beating them with sticks.

U.S. troops also exchanged gunfire Sunday near Najaf with militiamen loyal to radical Shiite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been charged with murder in the death of a rival cleric last year. There were no U.S. casualties.

In the southern city of Basra, a mortar shell exploded late Sunday near the headquarters of the traffic police, killing one civilian, police Lt.-Col. Ali Kadhim said. Minutes later, gunmen killed a policeman at a checkpoint, he said. It was unclear if the attacks were co-ordinated.

The violence came even as marines continued to pull back from the siege of the city of Fallujah, between Ramadi and Baghdad. A new Iraqi military force supposed to patrol the city received control of a bridge at the western side of the city Sunday from withdrawing troops, witnesses said.

Marines have completely handed over the southern side of Fallujah to the new Fallujah Brigade, a force made up of former soldiers from Saddam Hussein’s army and led by one his former generals. Marines remain on the northern side of the city, but U.S. commanders have said they will hand over their positions to the Iraqi brigade in the coming days.

The marines handed their positions over to the Fallujah Brigade under a surprise deal announced Thursday, after the United States came under international pressure to find a peaceful solution in Fallujah.

Meanwhile, Hamill was discovered when he approached a patrol from the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry, part of the New York National Guard, about 11:15 a.m. near the town of Balad - about 80 kilometres north of the place where he was abducted, the western Baghdad area of Abu Ghraib.

His wife said Hamill told her he was locked in a building and heard the troops driving by. He "pried the door open. He said he ran half a mile down the road and caught up with the convoy."

"Isn’t that something?" she said.(AP)

03.05.2004
Collective Bellaciao