Blast Kills 19 Iraqi Soldiers; Tape Shows Attack on U.S. Patrol

Nineteen Iraqi soldiers were killed and four wounded Saturday when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb to cripple an army convoy northeast of Baghdad and then opened fire on the patrol, police said.

The carefully coordinated attack near the town of Adhaim triggered a 30-minute firefight that killed two other people, possibly insurgents, and left five civilians wounded.

It was the second major strike in three days against U.S. and Iraqi forces that defend the Shiite Muslim-led government against a predominantly Sunni Arab guerrilla uprising. A powerful bomb fashioned from several artillery shells killed 10 Marines near Fallouja on Thursday in the deadliest attack against U.S. forces in nearly four months.

The Islamic Army in Iraq, a militant group believed to be linked to deposed President Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, released a video Saturday showing what it called an explosion targeting a U.S. patrol in the Fallouja area. It did not directly link the footage to Thursday’s attack, which police said occurred on a road west of the city, which is about 30 miles west of Baghdad.

In the brief video, a Humvee flanked by what look like U.S. troops on foot travels slowly along a street. An explosion hits the vehicle, sending clouds of dust into the air and bystanders fleeing.

The video’s authenticity could not be verified. It was shown on the Arabic-language satellite television channel Al Jazeera and later posted on a website used by insurgent groups to claim responsibility for attacks.

Saturday’s ambush targeted the Iraqi army, which is being trained by the U.S. military so that it can assume responsibility for the country’s security. President Bush last week acknowledged the Iraqi army’s “uneven” performance but said its troops would eventually be ready to shoulder the burden.

During the attack Saturday morning, all five of the Iraqi convoy’s vehicles went up in flames. Soldiers leaped out into the road where “there was very heavy shooting at us from all directions, and nowhere to hide,” said Ismail Fatah, a soldier in the Salam battalion.

“We shot back indiscriminately,” he added. “We may have caused some casualties among the civilians standing nearby.”

The insurgents retreated as army and police reinforcements arrived from nearby Baqubah, which is south of Adhaim and about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Baqubah, a tense city with a mixed population of Shiites and Sunnis, lies on a fault line of the sectarian conflict. It has experienced an increase in guerrilla activity over the last few weeks, prompting the army to bring in fresh troops. The Iraqi battalion attacked Saturday was made up of soldiers from Shiite cities in the southern part of the country.

The attack was one of the deadliest on Iraqi soldiers since a June 15 suicide bombing at a mess hall north of Baghdad that resulted in the deaths of 26 soldiers.

Earlier in the day, rocket or mortar fire struck a U.S. base at the airport in the northern city of Mosul, wounding two American soldiers, the U.S. military said.

A Times special correspondent in Baqubah contributed to this report.