Bomb attack kills three U.S. soldiers

TIKRIT, Iraq — A powerful bomb exploded under a U.S. armored vehicle in the cane fields north of Baghdad yesterday, killing three American soldiers and pushing the U.S. death toll in the Iraq conflict to 500.

Two Iraqi civil defense fighters also were killed and two American soldiers wounded when the bomb exploded under their Bradley fighting vehicle. The group was searching for land mines and roadside bombs near Taji, about 20 miles north of the Iraq capital, 4th Infantry Division spokesman Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald said.

The blast flipped the 30-ton vehicle and set it afire, witnesses said. Three men fleeing in a white truck were detained, and soldiers found bomb-making material in the vehicle, Col. MacDonald said. Residents reported that American soldiers rounded up an undetermined number of young men as well.

Col. MacDonald said the remote-controlled bomb was made up of two 155 mm artillery rounds and other explosives.

The military also said a U.S. soldier died from a non-hostile gunshot wound south of Baghdad. The incident occurred Friday evening near Diwaniyah, the command said in a statement.

The deaths raised to 500 the number of American service members who have died since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq started March 20. Of those, 346 died as a result of hostile action and 154 of non-hostile causes, according to Defense Department figures.

Most of the deaths have occurred since President Bush declared an end to major fighting on May 1. The death toll from the Persian Gulf war, when an American-led coalition drove Saddam Hussein’s invaders from Kuwait in 1991, was 315.

In Afghanistan, 100 Americans have been killed, fewer than a third of them from hostile fire.

The deaths come as insurgents have shifted to using roadside bombs and hit-and-run tactics such as the attack yesterday. A new troop rotation over the next four to six months will address that change, replacing heavy weaponry with high-tech, mobile fighting gear, a senior Army official said on the condition of anonymity.

The change also will reduce troop numbers from 130,000 to 105,000 in the largest troops rotation since World War II, the official said.

A military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said troop morale remained high despite the rising death toll. U.S. officials say the number of attacks against coalition forces has declined sharply since November, in part because soldiers are using more aggressive tactics.

Following an upsurge in casualties last fall, the Bush administration decided to speed the timetable for establishing a sovereign government, albeit unelected, by June 30. Members of a provisional legislature will be selected in 18 regional caucuses, and will in turn choose the government.

However, the country’s powerful Shi’ite Muslim leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, has demanded direct elections for the legislature, something U.S. officials say would be impossible to arrange by June 30.

Meanwhile, more than 30 Japanese soldiers, wearing dark suits and ties, arrived in Kuwait yesterday to prepare the way for a humanitarian mission in neighboring Iraq.

Expected to arrive by March, the 1,000-strong Japanese contingent will help purify local water supplies, rebuild schools and provide medical care in the south of the country. They will carry arms for self-protection but their role will be noncombatant.

In other developments yesterday, U.S. soldiers arrested a former Iraqi army major suspected of leading a Fedayeen cell in attacks on coalition forces. Lt. Col. Steve Russell said troops of the 4th Infantry Division raided a building in Qadisiyah, north of Tikrit, after a tip that the major was hiding there.

Coalition officials said Iraqi insurgents attacked a regional headquarters for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Hilla on Friday, killing one Iraqi and wounding others.