Anti-American insurgents fired mortar rounds at a military camp, killing one US soldier and wounding 34 others, the US command said.
Six mortar rounds exploded about 6:45pm Wednesday at Logistical Base Seitz west of Baghdad, in the so-called Sunni Muslim triange that is a stronghold of resistance to the US occupation of Iraq, a spokesman said.
Thirty-five soldiers were wounded in the attack, and one of them died overnight, a spokesman for the US-led coalition said yesterday.
"The wounded soldiers were given first aid and have been evacuated from the site for further medical treatment," said a military statement.
The mortars hit "a living area where they have their sleeping quarters," a military spokesman said.
Earlier Wednesday, US troops said they destroyed a home in Fallujah, the center of the anti-American insurgency west of Baghdad, where enraged neighbors said a married couple was killed and their five children were orphaned.
The neighbors insisted the couple was innocent in an attack on the troops that led them to shell the house.
"This is democracy? These corpses?" Raad Majeed asked at the hospital, gesturing at the remains of the couple, on gurneys covered with bloody sheets. "It's a crime against humanity."
The US Army's 82nd Airborne Division said its paratroopers acted after receiving "two rounds of indirect fire" around 9pm Tuesday.
"Paratroopers from our Task Force engaged the point of origin with a grenade launcher and small arms, causing two personnel to flee into a nearby building, which was also engaged and destroyed," division spokeswoman Captain Tammy Galloway said in a statement.
"The building was searched and no weapons or personnel were found. Upon questioning, civilians in the area reported two dead personnel were taken to a nearby hospital," the statement said.
Civilian deaths in the counterinsurgency campaign have enraged many Iraqis just as the US-led coalition is trying to win popular support.
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