2 U.S. Troops Killed By Gunman in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 -- Two American servicemen were killed Tuesday when a gunman in an Iraqi army uniform opened fire while they were distributing humanitarian aid in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

It was the third such shooting in the Mosul area in less than a year purportedly involving Iraqi soldiers, raising concerns about infiltration of the Iraqi security forces in one of the most dangerous areas in Iraq.

The shooting, southwest of Mosul near the Syrian border, came on the eve of a parliament vote on a pact that would allow American troops to remain in Iraq three more years. Iraq's government says its police and army are not ready to maintain security on their own.

The attack killed a Marine and an Army soldier, a military statement said. Two Marines and three Iraqi civilians were wounded, it said.

"The attack appears to have been unprovoked," said Col. Bill Buckner, a U.S. military spokesman.

Other U.S. military officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, said the gunman was in Iraqi army custody and appeared to be an Iraqi soldier.

The American servicemen and Iraqi soldiers were passing out blankets near Baaj, a mainly Sunni Arab area near the border, about 75 miles southwest of Mosul, when the midday attack occurred, one of the officials said.

The gunman, who fired from 50 to 100 yards away, appeared to be alone and fled after the attack, the official said.

The attack came two weeks after an Iraqi soldier ambushed U.S. soldiers in a courtyard of an Iraqi military base in a Sunni Arab neighborhood in Mosul, killing two Americans and wounding six before he died in the subsequent gun battle.

Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, described that shooting as a "premeditated" attack that occurred while the soldiers were waiting for their two lieutenants to finish a meeting with an Iraqi army commander.

Iraqi officials said the Nov. 12 shooting followed a quarrel with the Iraqi soldier, but Hertling disputed that account.

Similar reports emerged after Tuesday's shooting, with an Iraqi policeman and a news report saying an American serviceman had slapped a woman. But the U.S. military said that report was false.

Last December, an Iraqi soldier allegedly shot and killed a U.S. captain and a sergeant during a joint operation in Mosul.