Insurgents hit a US base in central Iraq with mortar shells and ambushed a US military convoy in Baghdad, killing three soldiers, the military said on Saturday.
Two US soldiers in a convoy in Baghdad's al-Rashid district were killed on Friday when a bomb exploded and the troops came under small arms fire, a military spokesman said. Three others were injured, the military said in a statement.
In Balad, north of Baghdad, shells struck a base of the Army's 4th Infantry Division on Friday night, Sergeant Robert Cargie said.
One of the shells exploded near a trailer used as a bedroom by some troops, and a soldier standing in its doorway was killed, he said. Two other soldiers were struck by shrapnel and taken to a combat support hospital, where they were in stable condition, Cargie said.
In response, helicopters took to the air to help in the search for the assailants, checkpoints were set up in and around town and vehicles searched, and six people were detained for questioning, he said.
The names of the slain soldiers were withheld pending notification of next of kin.
Northwest of Baghdad, hundreds of residents protested on Saturday in Hadithah, saying US soldiers had raided the town overnight. A cameraman for Associated Press Television News filmed four shroud-covered bodies, as well at least one person injured by a gunshot, in a hospital.
Residents said the four died in the US raid, but there was no way to immediately verify the claim. The military had no immediate comment.
The soldiers were in armored vehicles and "targeted three houses -- my sister's house, my uncle's and my own," said Abdel Meguid Awad, a resident.
Hadithah is part of the so-called "Sunni Triangle," the former heartland of Saddam Hussein's support and a center of opposition to the US-led occupation. The American search for fugitives and insurgents is focused on the region.
Friday night, the US military shelled the sparsely populated southern edge of Baghdad to root out insurgents believed to be launching mortar shells and rockets.
A military spokesman said the shelling of the Doura neighborhood was part of an offensive dubbed Operation Iron Grip. Residents said it appeared US fire was targeting fields in the neighborhood.
Bordered by date palm farms, Doura was once home to a number of former officials in Saddam Hussein's government and is now the site of a US military base.
The military is conducting operations like Iron Grip "in response to mortar rounds being fired" from specific locations around the city, US Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters.
The operations send "a very clear message to anybody who thinks that they can run around Baghdad without worrying about the consequences of firing [rocket propelled grenades], firing mortars," he said.
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