6, April 2005	Wednesday	26 Safar 1426

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BAGHDAD, April 5: Dozens of insurgents fought US and Iraqi troops in a fierce battle in remote marshlands east of Baghdad, killing two Americans and an Iraqi soldier before being driven away, the US military said on Tuesday. The battle erupted on Monday afternoon when two Iraqi army battalions were carrying out a “cordon and search operation” in the easterly Diyala province, the military said in a statement.

“The mission to search for weapons cache sites in the area uncovered dozens of terrorists and a firefight ensued.”

Around 100 US troops with Bradley fighting vehicles moved in to back up the Iraqi forces, and called in air support. The area was still being searched on Tuesday, the US army said.

“There were two to three dozen insurgents there, with evidence of prepared fighting positions,” Major Richard Goldenberg, spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division, said.

Recent weeks have seen a number of large-scale engagements between US troops and guerrillas.

On Saturday, more than 40 US soldiers and 12 prisoners were wounded when insurgents attacked Abu Ghraib jail west of Baghdad with suicide bombs, mortars and small-arms fire. The battle raged for around an hour.

GENERAL KIDNAPPED: In other violence on Tuesday a US soldier was killed and four were wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Roadside bombs also killed four civilians in Salman Pak and two policemen in the southern city of Basra, police said. A car bomb in southwest Baghdad killed an Iraqi civilian.

In Hilla, south of Baghdad, a local government official was assassinated, police said, and a tribal chief was shot dead in the town of Baquba northeast of the capital. Iraqi security officials say the delay in forming a new government has benefited insurgents trying to sow chaos in Iraq.—Reuters