Blast kills US soldier outside Baghdad

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, December 13, 2003

Blast kills US soldier outside Baghdad

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Insurgents detonated a bomb alongside a U.S. military convoy west of Baghdad on Friday, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the military said. Separately, another soldier died in Baghdad from what was described as a "non-hostile" gunshot wound.

The bomb attack occurred at 6:30 a.m. in Ramadi, about 60 miles west of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. Central Command said. One of the injured soldiers was evacuated to a combat hospital and died of his wounds. His name, and the names of the wounded, were withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Also Friday, a bomb made from a land mine exploded on the outskirts of the southern city of Mahaweel as a 19-person Polish convoy drove by Friday, wounding two soldiers.

Warrant Officer Tomasz Kloc was seriously wounded in the stomach and was evacuated to Baghdad, 45 miles to the north, while Sgt. Boguslaw Wasik suffered less severe injuries and was treated at the scene, Maj. Gen. Andrzej Tyszkiewicz told Poland's TVN24 television.

Two other coalition soldiers were slightly injured earlier Friday when Iraqi insurgents fired at least two projectiles, possibly mortar shells, at coalition headquarters in Baghdad. A coalition spokeswoman said she did not know their nationalities.

A building in the so-called "Green Zone", the downtown area housing coalition headquarters, was slightly damaged in the attack, the first on the U.S. seat of power since the Americans mounted a counteroffensive against insurgents last month.

"I heard what appeared to be incoming mortar rounds," Charles Krohn, a U.S. defense spokesman, said from his room inside the Green Zone. "I was shaken and I heard a couple of thumps. I felt the vibrations."

The zone includes the Al-Rasheed Hotel, which was rocketed Oct. 26 in an attack that killed a U.S. colonel and wounded 18 other people. Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was in the hotel at the time but escaped injury.

Also, the U.S. military said a soldier from the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad died early Friday of a "non-hostile gunshot wound." There were no further details, and an investigation was under way.

Meanwhile, the president of Iraq's Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, and at least two other members of the council left Friday for Spain �� the start of a European tour that also will include France, Germany and Britain. The reason for the trip was not announced in Baghdad.

In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry said Friday that the Iraqi delegation is to attend a meeting organized by MEDEF, France's main employer's organization.

French executives hope to press their business interests in Iraq despite a U.S. ban on reconstruction contracts for nations that opposed the war.

French President Jacques Chirac was a top critic of the war.

The ministry said the Iraqi delegation will also hold talks with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin to discuss "the prospects for change in the country," after the U.S.-led administration hands sovereignty to a transitional government next July.

Other members of the Governing Council said Friday that they may ask the U.S. military to expel 3,800 paramilitaries of the Mujahedeen Khalq, Iranians who oppose their government and who operate from Iraq.

"We might ask the Americans because they have the military capabilities," Governing Council member Dara Noor al-Din said. "We don't have an army and the police force isn't well enough equipped to face the Mujahedeen."

The U.S.-appointed council has no plans to hand the Mujahedeen Khalq members over to Iran, where they are wanted for terrorist attacks, Iraqi officials said.

The Mujahedeen Khalq has for years sought to topple Iran's clerical government. During Saddam Hussein's rule, Mujahedeen Khalq fighters were believed to have taken part in some of Saddam's campaigns to suppress Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite Muslim communities.

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