Iraqi Army says Sunni soldier killed 2 American troops
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BAGHDAD: In what would be the first publicly disclosed case of an Iraqi Army soldier deliberately killing American servicemen since the 2003 invasion, two U.S. soldiers were apparently shot on purpose by an Iraqi soldier on patrol with them in the northern city of Mosul, senior Iraqi officers said.
The killings occurred Dec. 26 as a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol was setting up a combat outpost in a dangerous neighborhood of western Mosul. Gunmen hiding in a building and in a car opened fire on the patrol, the Iraqi officers said Saturday. During the brief firefight, one of the Iraqi soldiers turned his weapon on his unsuspecting U.S. allies, they said.
The Iraqi soldier is suspected of killing Captain Rowdy Inman and Sergeant Benjamin Portell and wounding three other U.S. soldiers and one civilian interpreter, according to the U.S. military command in Baghdad. No Iraqi soldiers were killed or wounded, according to one Iraqi commander.
The Iraqi soldier tried to flee the scene but was apprehended after being identified by other Iraqi soldiers, U.S. military officials said. Two Iraqi soldiers are now in custody in connection with the shootings, the military said, suggesting that the soldier was aided by at least one accomplice.
The two Iraqi soldiers have not been identified.
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The soldier who shot the Americans was a turncoat tied to the insurgency, Brigadier General Mutaa Habib al-Khazraji, a commander in the Iraqi Army's 2nd Division in Mosul, said in an interview by telephone Saturday. During the firefight, he "seized the opportunity" and fired on the U.S. soldiers, killing two of them, the general said, adding that the Iraqi soldier "was an infiltrator." The U.S. military said the motives for the shooting were "as yet unknown."
The investigation into the killings, by the U.S. and Iraqi authorities, is certain to renew longstanding questions about the loyalties of Iraqi forces, who are supposed to take control as U.S. troops draw down. The Iraqi Army remains dominated by Shiites and Kurds, many of whom are suspicious of the allegiances of Sunni Arab soldiers. Many Sunnis, in turn, fear that the Kurds and Shiites are faithful only to their sects and are habitually hostile to Sunni Arabs.
The U.S. military did not disclose the circumstances of the shootings until Saturday afternoon, shortly after Reuters reported that Iraqi commanders had said that the U.S. troops had been deliberately shot by an Iraqi soldier.
Previously, the military had said only that Inman, 38, and Portell, 27, had died from "small-arms fire during dismounted combat operations." Both men were members of the 3rd Squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Hood, Texas.
"The shooting was deliberate," another Iraqi Army commander in Mosul, Brigadier General Noor al-Din Hussein, told Reuters. "It was not an accident."
He said the Iraqi soldier had been in the army for a year and was an Arab from the Jubouri tribe, which in Mosul is mostly Sunni. "There is some penetration" by insurgents, he said, "and we want to purify the Iraqi Army."
Nevertheless, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry in Baghdad, Muhammad al-Askari, said it was too early to know whether the shootings were deliberate.
"Maybe this man is mad," Askari said. "Maybe he is suffering psychological problems."
While violence has fallen off in western and central Iraq, Mosul and northern Iraq remain volatile, and many areas still are under the sway of extremist Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
Khalid al-Ansary, Mudhafer al-Husaini and Abeer Mohammed contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed from Mosul.
Suicide bomber kills at least 4
As jubilant Iraqi soldiers celebrated Army Day by dancing inside a political office Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest, killing at least four people and wounding six others, according to Iraqi police and military officials, Solomon Moore reported from Baghdad.
Four guards prevented the bomber from entering the building where the dozens of soldiers were chanting anti-insurgent slogans in a boisterous circle, but he detonated his vest outside, the officials said.
"The suicide bomber was very young," said an Iraqi police officer who declined to be identified because he is not allowed to speak to the media. "We found his severed head and we found a Yemeni identification card near the rest of his body."
In Baquba on Sunday, gunmen burst into the home of Sheikh Dhari Mandeel, a leader of the predominately Sunni Arab tribal militia known as the Awakening Councils, and shot and killed him. The assailants also killed the sheikh's wife, according to the police, and kidnapped 10 of his relatives.
And in Baghdad's predominately Shiite district of Shaab, the Iraqi police reported that another tribal leader named Ismael Abbas who had pledged loyalty to the United States was assassinated outside his home Sunday.
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