An Iraqi soldier went on the rampage at a joint security station in northern Iraq yesterday, shooting dead two US soldiers and wounding six, the US military said.
The US military said the soldier opened fire on the Americans at the station - one of many in which Iraqi and US troops operate side by side - in the city of Mosul.
"The soldiers were in the courtyard ... an Iraqi soldier entered and shot two soldiers, killing one, mortally wounding another, and then spraying the others," said US army spokeswoman for northern Iraq Major Peggy Kageleiry.
"He was engaged by counter-fire and killed," she added. A local morgue said it had received the body of the Iraqi soldier, riddled with bullets.
Two local police sources and an Iraqi army source, all of whom declined to be named, said a quarrel had broken out between the Iraqi and US soldiers at the joint station.
But Major Kageleiry denied there was any altercation between the soldiers before the shooting.
"The US soldiers had no conversation with this soldier and there was no interaction of any kind before they were murdered," she said.
Reuters