Naseer Al-Nahr • Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 25 June 2003 — British forces suffered their first major postwar casualty in Iraq yesterday when six soldiers were killed and eight others wounded in two separate attacks.

The six soldiers were killed in the first of two separate attacks, British Army Capt. Dennis Abbott said. In the other attack, three soldiers were wounded seriously. Abbott declined to give further details on the first incident saying only that the British troops came under attack by Iraqis. Both incidents took place near the southern town of Amarah, 130 km (90 miles) north of Basra.

The two ambushes were the first significant attacks on the British since major combat was declared over on May 1. While Americans have been under fire in central Iraq for weeks, the British in the south have felt secure enough to patrol the country’s second-biggest city, Basra, without flak jackets or helmets.

Officials at the Pentagon said insurgents were ratcheting up anti-US attacks, staging 25 of them in the past day alone. American troops battled Iraqis at a checkpoint in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, yesterday, leaving three Iraqis dead and one American wounded.

The circumstances in which the British troops were killed were unclear. British troops came under attack in another location only kilometers away in Amarah, a mostly Shiite city. Gunmen fired on a patrol, wounding one soldier. A helicopter dispatched to assist the ground forces then came under fire as it landed and seven people on board were wounded, three of them seriously, said the office of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Abbott said that two British Army vehicles were also destroyed. He added that the helicopter involved was a Royal Air Force Chinook carrying a quick reaction force. Another helicopter extracted the wounded, he said.

Speaking by telephone from Basra, Abbott said the wounded were receiving treatment. He added that British forces are investigating to determine whether the two incidents are related.

At least 18 US soldiers have been killed in Iraqi attacks since May 1. Thirty-eight British troops have died — 16 in accidents — since coalition forces invaded March 20. Britain has suffered no confirmed combat deaths since April 6. Since then, two British servicemen have died in accidents, another of natural causes and a fourth in an explosion still under investigation.

US troops have been coming under nearly daily hit-and-run attacks in central and western Iraq,” where Saddam Hussein had his strongest support.

Iraqi insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at US troops in at least three towns in western Iraq. In the capital, guerrillas fired a grenade near the headquarters of the US administration. No injuries were reported in that attack.

Late Monday, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the mayor’s office in Fallujah, the latest in a series of attacks against people believed to be cooperating with US occupation forces in Iraq.

US troops shot and killed one of the ambushers in Fallujah, 55 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, US military officers said. But local residents at the scene said the man killed was not involved in the attack and was caught in the crossfire. During the past 24 hours, the US military said it had conducted 1,068 day patrols and 837 night patrols across Iraq in an effort to stem the violence. — Additional input from the Associated Press