MOSUL, Dec 10: Two US soldiers and a Kurdish official were killed in Mosul on Wednesday.

An improvised explosive device (IED) struck an American military convoy a few hours after a drive-by shooting at a filling station in Mosul, said Major Hugh Cate of the 101st Airborne Division.

“We have one soldier killed in an IED and three wounded” on the east side of the river Tigris, he said.

An eyewitness said the bomb hit the final vehicle in a convoy of three in the city’s Hai Abdubad area.

Another roadside bomb attack failed when a would-be bomber blew himself up as he tried to plant a device beside a road used by US convoys in Mosul, residents said.

A US soldier had died a couple of hours earlier after being flown to hospital with a wounded colleague following the drive-by shooting.

“We had two vehicles drive by and shoot at two sides of the street. They fired on the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) offices and they fired on the gas station and then they sped off,” Cate said.

He said his soldiers “have paid the price” in a surge of attacks that has been sustained for six weeks.

A Kurdish leader in Mosul said one of his officials had died from the gunmen’s fire as he drove out of the office opposite the gas station, also east of the Tigris.

With petrol rationing imposed on Wednesday, Ahmed Yassin, 20, had been waiting all night in a huge line to fill up his car when the gunmen drew up.

“I saw them wearing dark glasses in two separate cars, one light blue, the other dark blue,” he said.

“One lowered his window, poked out a Kalashnikov and opened fire.”

The latest deaths brought to 195 the number of US soldiers killed in combat since President George Bush declared major hostilities over on May 1.—AFP