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Iraqi Who Shot U.S. Troops May Have Been Qaeda: U.S.
An Iraqi soldier who shot dead two U.S. troops and wounded six on a rampage in the northern city of Mosul may have been an al Qaeda infiltrator, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq said on Thursday.The Iraqi soldier opened fire on the Americans on Wednesday at a joint security station in the volatile city, before being killed by in return fire. "It appears there was an Iraqi soldier, possibly infiltrated by AQ, who engaged a number of soldiers and killed one of them," Brigadier General David Perkins told Reuters television, using an abbreviation for al Qaeda, the Sunni militant group. Iraqi police and military sources said the shooting happened after a quarrel broke out between the Iraqi and U.S. soldiers at the station, but the U.S. military has denied there was a fight. "There were some false news reports that there had been altercations between the American soldiers and Iraqi soldier ... in fact there were no altercations," Perkins said. The incident was not the first in which an Iraqi soldier has ended up in a gun battle with his U.S. counterparts. In December last year, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. troops during a joint patrol, also in Mosul, killing two and wounding three. Posted by: ed 2008-11-15 |
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