Insurgents' ambush kills 19 Iraqi soldiers

BAGHDAD -- Insurgents exploded a roadside bomb to cripple an Iraqi Army convoy northeast of Baghdad yesterday and then opened fire on the patrol, killing 19 soldiers and wounding four, police said.

The carefully coordinated attack near the town of Adhaim triggered a fight that killed two other people, possibly insurgents, and left five civilians wounded.

It was the second major strike in three days against US and Iraqi forces that defend the Shiite Muslim-led government against a predominately Sunni Arab guerrilla uprising. A powerful bomb fashioned from several artillery shells Thursday killed 10 Marines near Fallujah in the deadliest attack against US forces in nearly four months.

The Islamic Army of Iraq, a militant group believed to be linked to deposed President Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, posted a video yesterday showing what it called an explosion against a US patrol in the Fallujah area. It did not directly link the footage to Thursday's attack, which police said occurred on a road west of the city, about 30 miles west of Baghdad, the capital.

In the video, a Humvee flanked by what looked like US troops on foot traveled slowly along a street. An explosion engulfed the vehicle, sending bystanders fleeing.

The video's authenticity could not be verified. It was shown on Al Jazeera television and later posted on a website used by insurgent groups to claim attacks.

Yesterday's ambush targeted the Iraqi army, which the US military is expanding and training to take on the insurgents.

Last week, President Bush acknowledged the Iraqi army's ''uneven" performance but said its troops eventually would be ready to shoulder the burden of maintaining the nation's security.

During the morning attack yesterday, all five of the Iraqi convoy's vehicles went up in flames.

The soldiers leaped onto the road, where ''there was very heavy shooting at us from all directions, and nowhere to hide," said Ismail Fatah, of the Salam Battalion.

''We shot back indiscriminately," he added. ''We may have caused some casualties among the civilians standing nearby."

The insurgents faded away as army and police reinforcements arrived from nearby Baqubah, the capital of Diyala Province, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Baqubah, a tense city with a mixed population of Shiites and Sunnis, lies on a fault line of the sectarian conflict.

It has experienced a surge in guerrilla activity over the past three weeks, prompting the army to bring in fresh troops.

The battalion attacked yesterday was made up of soldiers from Shi'ite cities in southern Iraq.

The attack was one of the deadliest on Iraqi soldiers since a suicide bombing June 15 at a mess hall north of Baghdad that resulted in the deaths of at least 23 soldiers.

Earlier in the day, rocket or mortar fire struck a US base at the airport in Mosul, wounding two American soldiers, the US military said. The city is about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Also yesterday, a leading member of the British antiwar movement, Anas Altikriti, arrived in Iraq to try to win the release of the four Christian peace activists who were taken hostages last week.

Altikriti told the British Broadcasting Corp. that he would meet with Iraqi organizations in hopes one of them might have contacts with the kidnappers.

The co-workers of the activists, two Canadians, an American, and a Briton, appealed to militants yesterday to release them.

''They are really working for peace and justice. They are helping you and other Iraqi people," Peggy Gish of the Chicago-based organization Christian Peacemaker Teams said in Amman, Jordan.

The kidnappers have threatened to kill the hostages if Iraqi prisoners are not released from American and Iraqi jails by Thursday, the Arabic satellite station Al Jazeera reported.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.