US marines ambushed near Falluja

Seven marines were killed and eight wounded when their convoy was attacked the al-Saqlawiya area on Monday, a journalist based in Falluja told Aljazeera.

Three Iraqi national guardsmen also died during the assault.

"Two explosive devices detonated as a multi-vehicle convoy passed through the area," journalist Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi said, adding that two Humvees were destroyed in the blasts.

"More than 100 soldiers have taken up rooftop positions in nearby buildings," said al-Dulaimi. As helicopters flew overhead, US soldiers sealed off the site in al-Saqlawiya, which is about 15km from Falluja.

The mainly Sunni Muslim city of Falluja, about 65km west of Baghdad, has seen scores of dead and wounded in recent weeks, including many civilians, after repeated US air strikes and ground attacks.

The US military has said it is targeting hideouts of foreign fighters. Falluja residents have told Aljazeera there are no such fighters in the city.

Baghdad attacks

Meanwhile, an Iraqi child was killed and eight others were injured, four seriously, when a US missile landed in the Abu Ghraib district west of Baghdad while the children were playing ball, informed sources told Aljazeera.

Although Iraqi police sources say the missile was American, US forces have not commented on the incident.

Earlier, a mortar bomb exploded in the al-Adhamiya district of Baghdad on Monday, leaving one person dead and seven others injured, medical sources told Aljazeera.

At the same time, a series of explosions rocked central Baghdad. Columns of white smoke rose near the Green Zone, the heavily-fortified area housing the US embassy and Iraq's interim government.

The latest deaths in the capital follow those of two US soldiers killed in a mortar attack near Baghdad, the American military said in a statement. The attack left 16 others wounded.

Pipeline ablaze

Also on Monday, a natural gas pipeline in northern Iraq was attacked, an act that could affect power in several cities, a police officer said.

The pipeline connects the Janbur fields with the Baiji power station some 70km to the south, said Colonel Muhammad Ahmad from the Oil Protection Police.

The Janbur fields are 20km south of Kirkuk.

Firefighters were able to extinguish the fire about half an hour after it started, he said. He added that experts from the company would replace the damaged pipeline within a day.

The Baiji electricity station can generate up to 400 megawatts a day and supplies the northern cities of Mosul, Kirkuk and Tikrit, with power, Ahmad said.
Aljazeera + Agencies
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