BAGHDAD — Five American soldiers were killed and three wounded Monday when a suicide bomber walked up to their patrol on a crowded shopping street in central Baghdad and blew himself up, the military and Iraqi police said.The blast was one of the worst single attacks on the American military since the so-called surge campaign of additional American troops to pacify the Iraqi capital and surrounding areas was begun last year.
The soldiers were on a regular daily patrol in the middle of the afternoon on a busy street of clothing, food and souvenir stores in Mansour, a relatively upscale and predominantly Sunni Arab district, when the suicide attacker, described as a young male, approached the soldiers and engaged them in conversation.
“He came up and stood beside them and started talking to them and detonated himself,” said an Iraqi police officer at the scene.
An Iraqi interpreter was wounded by the blast, which occurred about 3 p.m., said Lt. Michael Street of the Navy, a military spokesman in Baghdad.
Four of the soldiers were killed immediately by the explosion and the fifth died later from his injuries. “Initial reports indicate the explosive device was a suicide vest,” the military statement said. Iraqi police officers said the soldiers had undertaken regular patrols and were well known in the neighborhood.
While there have been other big attacks on the Americans in Iraq this year, they have been relatively rare in Baghdad as the city has become safer and more secure.
In January, militants killed nine American soldiers over two successive days in the volatile Sunni Arab heartlands north of Baghdad. Six of the soldiers died when they were clearing a house in Diyala during an offensive and insurgents detonated a large bomb hidden in the house.
Despite the overall drop in violence in Iraq, deadly assaults on American troops have continued, particularly in the northern Arab provinces, where Sunni Arab guerrillas have many strongholds.
In Diyala Province on Feb. 17, two American soldiers were shot to death, and another was wounded, according to the American military.
Five American soldiers were killed on Feb. 8 in two roadside bombings, one in Baghdad and the other in northern Iraq, the military said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?hp
