SPA — Guerrillas ambushed a U.S. convoy in the hostile region north of Baghdad on Sunday, wounding several soldiers, as a new U.S. mission was launched to hunt for Saddam Hussein loyalists blamed for recent attacks. A crippled U.S. truck smouldered on the highway south of the restive town of Balad after the ambush, its tyres and canopy ablaze. Apache helicopters buzzed overhead, searching for the attackers. Tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded the truck. Troops trained their guns at the fields around the road. Soldiers said several casualties had been evacuated. They said the convoy had been travelling from Baghdad to Balad, about 90 km (60 miles) to the north. It was attacked about 20 km south of Balad.
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The ambush came as the U.S. military launched a new mission, Operation Desert Scorpion, to root out Saddam loyalists after a spate of attacks that have killed about 40 U.S. soldiers since major combat was declared over on May 1. The new U.S. military sweep followed last week's Operation Peninsula Strike — the biggest such U.S. manoeuvre in Iraq since May 1 — when a series of raids were mounted in the fertile plains around Balad near the Tigris river. |