Day after UN nod, 4 US cops killed in Iraq

In the deadliest single attack on US forces since three soldiers died in an ambush near Tikrit on September 18, three American military policemen died and seven were wounded in the Karbala attack late on Thursday.

The US Military said two Iraqi police were also killed and five wounded when attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles at their patrol in Karbala, 90 km south of Baghdad.

Hours later a fourth military policeman was reported killed in a bomb blast in the Baghdad area. Two others were wounded.

The violence erupted after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted on Thursday a resolution aimed at getting troops and cash for Iraq, a diplomatic victory for the US as it tries to muster support for its occupation.

Bush wants other nations to share the costly task of stabilising and rebuilding Iraq, but the new resolution has won a mixed reception from potential donors.

A US Military statement said of the Karbala incident: ‘‘The engagement involved an exchange of small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades as Iraqi authorities and coalition military police were investigating reports of armed men congregating on a road near the mosque after curfew.’’

An Iraqi witness said US troops in armoured vehicles had approached the house of local cleric Sayyid Mahmoud Al-Hassani, a sympathiser of radical Shi’ite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr, and ordered his followers to disarm and go home.

‘‘They (the Americans) opened fire and I saw seven dead Iraqis, some of them with Kalashnikovs,’’ he said.

‘‘The Americans are terrorists, who are choking us with their ‘democracy’,’’ said Ali Abdullah, who lives nearby. ‘‘What is Bush talking about when he talks about democracy?’’ (Reuters)