A roadside car bomb blast targeting a US patrol killed five people, including a US soldier, west of the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, an interior ministry official and the US military said.
Ten other civilians were wounded in the explosion as the US patrol passed in the town of Abu Ghraib, the official said.
“The blast killed one US soldier,” a US spokesman said.
Separately, the US military announced that Navy Commander Duane Wolfe was among three Americans killed on Monday when the vehicle they were traveling in was hit by a roadside bomb near Fallujah. The military had previously announced that a US soldier, a civilian employee of the State Department and a Defense Department worker were killed in Monday’s blast.
The men died when their car drove over a bomb while were returning from an inspection of a waste water treatment plant under construction in Fallujah, US Ambassador Christopher Hill said in the statement.
Meanwhile, Turkish jets hit a Kurdish guerrilla group in northern Iraq yesterday, the Turkish general staff said on its Web site.
“Our jets fulfilled their duty successfully and returned to their bases safely,” the statement said, without adding more details.
The Turkish air force frequently carries out operations against Kurdistan Workers’ Party bases in northern Iraq, but yesterday’s operation came after a mine blast killed six Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 in the mainly Kurdish southeast on Wednesday.
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