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Crowd of Iraqis kills British soldier

A crowd of Iraqis fired rocket-propelled grenades and guns at a convoy of British soldiers in the south of the country, killing one and wounding another, the British military said yesterday.

The death brought to 11 the number of British soldiers killed in action since May 1, when major combat was declared over in the US-led war that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Sixty-four US soldiers have died from hostile fire over the same period.

Postwar guerrilla violence and major attacks such as last week's bombing of the UN office in Baghdad have also sparked debate on whether Washington and its allies have enough troops on the ground with the right training to pacify Iraq.

Despite misgivings, the US and Britain intend to explore a UN resolution next week that would encourage nations to send troops, police trainers and money for the reconstruction of Iraq, diplomats said on Wednesday.

The latest attack happened when a British convoy from the First Battalion of the King's Own Scottish Borderers was returning from an arrest operation on Wednesday evening.

It came across a roadblock that diverted it through the town of Ali Ash Sharqi in southern Iraq, about 200km northwest of the city of Basra, a spokesman said.

Around 30 Iraqis confronted the soldiers, who got out of their vehicles. Another crowd closed in on them from behind.

"The British soldiers fired two warning shots, and the crowd opened fire with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades," the spokesman said. "One soldier was fatally wounded and another was seriously wounded in the hand."

The spokesman said 10 Iraqis were arrested. The convoy returned to base with a helicopter escort.

Earlier on Wednesday, two US soldiers were killed in separate attacks in Iraq.

The total number of US soldiers who have died in Iraq since the start of May now exceeds the number who lost their lives during the invasion and occupation in March and April.

US forces have generally faced much more hostility in Iraq than their British counterparts, at least in part because the Americans patrol Baghdad and Sunni Muslim areas to its north and west that were bastions of support for Saddam.

But the British troops responsible for mainly Shiite southern Iraq have faced a testing time in recent weeks.

Three British military policemen were killed in an ambush on Saturday in Iraq's second city of Basra, where riots broke out earlier this month over fuel and electricity shortages. A British soldier was also killed by a bomb earlier this month.

At the UN, one Security Council diplomat said there was a push to adopt a new resolution on Iraq before the mid-September General Assembly gathering of world leaders.

"You may well start to see ideas on paper," another said.

One suggestion by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week was that the council could approve a new multinational force, led by the US as the largest troop contributor. Such a force would be authorized but not organized by the UN as a blue-helmeted peacekeeping operation.

But it is unclear whether that would be enough for France, Germany and Russia, all council members who opposed the war, or acceptable to the Pentagon, with its insistence on US control of political, economic and particularly military operations.
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