Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraqi Suicide Bombing

Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraqi Suicide Bombing
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WITH THE THIRD INFANTRY, Central Iraq, Saturday, March 29 — A Iraqi suicide bomber killed five U.S. soldiers today by luring them to his taxi cab at a checkpoint north of Najaf and then detonating an explosive, an army spokesman in the region said.

The attack occurred north of Najaf on a road west of the Euphrates River. The victims were all members of the division's First Brigade, which has been involved in significant fighting around the city since last weekend.

Capt. Andrew J. Valles, the civil affairs officer for the First Brigade, said the attack occurred just after noon when the taxi pulled up to the checkpoint and called to the soldiers, who approached the car cautiously in a security drill that put two of them in front of the car and three on the side.

"As they approached the vehicle the driver detonated a bomb killing all five of the soldiers and himself," Capt. Valles said.

It was the first suicide bomb attack on United States soldiers fighting in Iraq, and signaled a potentially disturbing turn of events as irregular forces loyal to Saddam Hussein have been seeking to employ guerrilla tactics to slow the advance of an 80,000 member army on Baghdad.

An earlier suicide car bombing occurred this week in northern Iraq at a civilian checkpoint at Girdi Go, in the Kurdish controlled region. That blast killed four people, including an Australian television cameraman. It followed American military attacks on Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group allied with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization.

The checkpoint near Najaf was part of the cordon that the Third Infantry has been enforcing around the holy city, where Ali, the spiritual leader Shiite Muslims is buried in a major shrine visited by pilgrims from around the world.

"I don't know what motivated this guy to kill himself. To me this is not an act of war," said Capt. Valles. "It's terrorism -- a man in a civilian vehicle killing himself at a checkpoint."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/international/worldspecial/29WEB-BOMB.html