A US soldier was killed and three more were wounded today when their convoy ran over a bomb planted on a road in the volatile Iraqi town of Falluja, the US-led military force in Iraq said.
The town, a hotbed of opposition to the US-led occupation of Iraq, was the scene of anti-American protests yesterday after US soldiers shot dead 10 members of a local security force, apparently mistaking them for resistance fighters.
"At 8 a.m. (5 a.m. Irish time) this morning in Falluja, a vehicle convoy hit an IED (improvised explosive device)... one soldier was killed," a spokeswoman for the occupying force said.
Witnesses in Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad, said a Humvee military vehicle had been destroyed in the attack. One soldier lay motionless by the road near the Humvee after the attack as other soldiers combed the area.
The latest death brought to 72 the number of US soldiers killed by hostile action in Iraq since May 1st, when President Bush declared an end to major combat in the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Falluja lies in a restive area US officers call the "Sunni triangle." The region north and west of the capital is dominated by Sunni Muslims and was a bastion of support for Saddam, himself a Sunni, during his years in power.
The latest death comes as US Secretary of State begins a visit to Kuwait and Iraq.