Attack on Base Kills U.S. Soldier

Insurgents launched two deadly attacks in Baghdad on Friday, killing an American soldier and injuring a civilian contractor in a mortar barrage on a U.S. base and wounding three American troops in an ambush in another part of the capital.

The attacks were among several in Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq after a series of deadly car bombings this week that have unnerved the Iraqi public before the transfer of sovereignty June 30.

Municipal officials said at least 13 Iraqis died in two days of clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents in the town of Buhriz, northeast of Baghdad.

Three Iraqi civilians died in the Baghdad ambush, which began when a roadside bomb exploded in the Kamalaya district in the east of the city, the U.S. command said in a statement. Insurgents opened fire from rooftops. U.S. troops returned fire, and the insurgents “sustained moderate casualties,” the statement said.

Several hours later, six mortar shells exploded at a 1st Cavalry Division camp in southern Baghdad, killing an American soldier and slightly injuring a contractor working for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, the military said.

The U.S. military also reported that an American soldier was ambushed and killed by gunmen near Baqubah. That brings the number of dead U.S. troops to about 840 since the invasion last year.

Elsewhere Friday, American soldiers clashed with insurgents for a second straight day in the Sunni town of Buhriz, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Insurgents also attacked U.S. troops at a police station in the Sunni Triangle city of Samarra, warning shopkeepers to close before opening fire with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, witnesses said. U.S. troops returned fire, wounding two attackers, residents said by telephone. There was no report on U.S. casualties.

In the south, British soldiers traded small-arms fire overnight with Shiite fighters loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr in Amarah, witnesses said. There were no British casualties, but two insurgents were killed.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said repair work was nearing completion on the smaller of two oil pipelines that were blasted by insurgents this week. Engineers were still examining the larger one, he said.