An Iraqi soldier opened fire on a US military team on Saturday, killing two US soldiers and wounding three, the US military said, in an attack that could sharpen worries about the extent of militant infiltration in Iraq’s security forces.
Iraqi officials described the attacker — who was killed in the gunbattle — as a soldier who also served as a Sunni Muslim preacher for his unit near Mosul, which is one of the last urban strongholds for Sunni insurgents.
Such an ambush could increase pressure on the Shiite-led government to try to root out possible turncoats and slow efforts to bring Sunni militiamen into the police and military as rewards for helping battle al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent factions.
But any possible slowdown of the Sunni outreach will meet resistance from Washington, which sees the sectarian reconciliation as essential for Iraq’s stability and to keep security gains from rolling back.
A US military statement said the attacker was killed after firing on the US soldiers near the entrance to a combat outpost 20km south of Mosul.
A separate gunman fired at other US soldiers at the outpost, then fled, said Major Derrick Cheng, a spokesman for US forces in northern Iraq.
In the past, attackers have used military and police uniforms to bypass checkpoints and gain access to heavily guarded bases. But several Iraqi military officials said the gunman was a low-ranking Iraqi soldier.
It was the latest case of a member of Iraq’s security forces targeting US troops. On Feb. 24, two Iraqi police officers in Mosul opened fire on a visiting US military team, killing one US soldier and an interpreter. The gunmen remain fugitives.
Earlier last week, a US military spokesman, First Lieutenant John Brimley, called the February shooting “definitely an anomaly.”
Saturday’s attack follows the deadliest month for US troops in Iraq since September — with 18 US soldiers dying in Iraq last month.
Elsewhere, US-backed Iraqi troops arrested the leader of a Sunni paramilitary group north of Baghdad in the town of Duluiyah.
Mullah Nadhim al-Jubouri and his two brothers, Yassir and Thakir, were arrested on warrants accusing them of terrorism, the US military said, without elaborating.
The move was likely to spark anger among members of the so-called Awakening Councils, which have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq in what is considered a key factor in the drop in violence.
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