Naseer Al-Nahr, Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 19 September 2003 — American forces took casualties yesterday after they came under attack in Khaldiyah. The troops — hit with a remote-controlled bomb then ambushed with small arms fire — engaged in a fierce gunbattle in which a stray bullet hit a 20-year-old man in the chest.

Al-Arabiya television reported eight Americans were killed and one wounded in the ambush. The US military did not confirm any deaths. It said two soldiers were wounded.

Khaldiyah residents reported an undetermined number of US soldiers killed.

Witnesses in Khaldiyah, 80 km (50 miles) west of Baghdad, said the attack was triggered by a bomb that went off underneath an American vehicle that caught fire with about 10 US soldiers inside.

Mahmud Ali saw eight burned soldiers taken from the bombed vehicle hit while the convoy was passing through Khaldiyah en route from the town of Fallujah toward Ramadi. Yusuf Ali, 40, no relation, said he saw four victims.

“A bomb exploded underneath a troop transport. It caught fire. The remainder of the convoy tried to continue and was hit by rocket-propelled grenades 500 meters away,” said Mahmud Ali.

The Americans tried to seal off the road and call in reinforcements but the convoy was hit at least twice by RPGs as it continued on its way toward a nearby base. At least one other vehicle was set ablaze.

A US helicopter circled the area, apparently poised to evacuate the wounded but did not land, the witnesses said. A loud explosion was heard in the town toward late afternoon and another in the evening but there was no report of damage or casualties.

As US troops withdrew from the dangerous region at nightfall, residents of the “Sunni Triangle” city danced in the streets carrying a poster of Saddam Hussein in military fatigues. They fired Kalashnikov assault rifles in the air and chanted: “With our blood, with our souls, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Saddam.”

The region north and west of Baghdad, including the especially dangerous cities of Fallujah and Ramadi — with Khaldiyah in between — is a stronghold of Saddam loyalists who have carried out bloody assaults on American forces daily and with increasing sophistication.

Soldiers are jumpy in the face of a guerrilla war in which the enemy and ordinary civilians cannot be told apart. The troops’ unease showed itself in yesterday’s ambush and firefight as soldiers appeared to be firing on anything they felt threatened by, including an Associated Press reporter and photographer covering the incident. Neither man was hurt. Photographer Karim Kadim and his driver ran to safety from their car after an American tank trained its machine gun on the vehicle. It was subsequently hit about 20 times, blowing out the windshield and flattening all the tires.