Ten United States soldiers, a South African civilian and at least 10 Iraqis were in attacks in Iraq

By Lee Keath

Baghdad - Ten United States soldiers, a South African civilian and at least 10 Iraqis were killed in attacks around the country on Thursday, including eight Americans who died in a bombing south of Baghdad and two Iraqi children shot to death in a gunbattle.

The bombing occurred at 11.30am near the town of Mahmoudiyah, where the team from the 1st Armoured Division was removing roadside bombs from a key highway south of the capital, the military said in a statement.

A driver in a station wagon neared the team then "detonated an explosive device," killing eight soldiers and wounding four, the statement said. An earlier military statement said the men were killed by a car bomb, but the new statement did not elaborate on how the attack was carried out.

The 1st Armoured Division was to have returned to their home base in Germany by now, under their original deployment orders. The division’s departure was blocked by the Pentagon and the unit was ordered to remain in Iraq for 90 days, after this month’s surge in violence. Soldiers who had already returned to Germany were ordered back to Iraq.

Two Iraqi boys aged seven and eight-years-old were killed when a shootout occurred in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Khadra, where hundreds of residents of Fallujah have set up camp after fleeing the city.

A US convoy was attacked as it passed by the area, prompting a gunbattle, and the children - playing nearby - were hit, witnesses said.

In the northern city of Mosul, seven Iraqi police and a civilian were killed on Thursday in attacks on police positions, the US military said. Two of the police officers were gunned down on the street. In the second attack, gunmen in a car opened fire on a police station, killing a civilian. Police who pursued the gunmen were led into an ambush in an open field that killed five policemen, the military said.

Earlier Thursday, another US soldier from the Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his patrol in eastern Baghdad, the military said.

A US soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy outside the city of Baqouba, 40km north of the capital, the military said.

Also on Thursday, a military convoy was attacked in western Baghdad, setting a large cargo truck on fire. There was no immediate word on casualties from the attack.

The deaths raise to 126 the number of US service members killed in combat in April, the bloodiest month for US forces in Iraq.

The military announced that another soldier died in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad. At least 736 US troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Up to 1 200 Iraqis also have been killed this month.

Meanwhile, gunmen attacked a car in the southern city of Basra, killing a foreigner believed to be a South African, the British military said. The South African Foreign Ministry confirmed that a national of the country had been killed - the fifth to die in Iraq, the South African news agency reported. - Sapa-AP

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