Naseer Al-Nahr • Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 20 June 2003 — A US soldier was killed and two were wounded yesterday in an ambush as Iraqis seethed with anger over the deaths of two people a day earlier, when American troops opened fire on a group of protesters in the capital.

At about noon, attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US military ambulance, killing the American soldier, while on a highway in Al-Iskandariyah, 32 km south of here, a military spokesman said.

It was the third reported attack on US personnel or their offices in the last 24 hours. The ambulance was transporting a wounded US soldier to a medical facility when it was hit.

The wounded soldier being transported was not the one killed, said Capt. John Morgan, a US military spokesman. The casualties were members of the 804th Medical Brigade, and their identities were being withheld pending notification of relatives.

The wounded were taken to the 28th Combat Army Support Hospital in southwest Baghdad. It was not immediately clear if the ambulance was traveling as part of a convoy or if fire was returned.

Three mortar shells exploded Tuesday outside a coalition-run humanitarian aid office in the town of Samarra, north of here, killing an Iraqi bystander and wounding 12 others, hospital officials and US officers in the town said yesterday. No American forces were hurt.

Attackers also fired a rocket-propelled grenade that struck a US tank in Samarra, said Sgt. Steven Stoddard with the Army’s 4th Infantry Division. A second tank fired back, killing one attacker, while the second was captured, Stoddard said. There were no American casualties.

In west Baghdad, an army truck was hit by what witnesses said was a rocket-propelled grenade. The torn-apart truck sat burning on the edge of the highway. Witnesses said there were casualties, but US military police at the scene said the vehicle broke down earlier and was set on fire after being left alone while soldiers prepared to remove it.

The mortar rounds in Samarra, 122 km north of Baghdad, exploded Tuesday outside the Civil Military Operations Center. US soldiers heard three explosions and asked local police to investigate, the military said.

Samarra police found the injured and killed and the soldiers were unable to find the attackers, said a statement from US Central Command.

In Baghdad, scores of angry mourners fired Kalashnikov assault rifles into the air and shouted curses at the United States during a procession yesterday for the two Iraqis shot dead by US troops on Wednesday.

Shouting “Death to Bush!” and “Revenge!,” mourners marched with the body of 32-year-old former Iraqi Army officer Tareq Hussein Mohammed from his house to a mosque. He was one of the two shot dead.

As neighbors saw the coffin arriving at his house from the morgue, they fired their weapons into the air for more than 15 minutes at a time in a deafening, frenzied display of defiance. US troops have prohibited people from shooting their weapons in the streets.

Iraqi cities have been on edge since Sunday, when coalition forces began house-to-house searches in Baghdad for banned weapons and suspected activists trying to undermine the US-led occupation. US forces said Wednesday they captured Saddam Hussein’s top aide and presidential secretary, a man who American officials believe knows the fate of the deposed Iraqi leader and has information about banned weapons. Abid Hamid Mahmud Al-Tikriti was No. 4 on the US most-wanted list of Iraqi leaders, behind only Saddam and sons Qusai and Uday.