Roadside bomb kills two U.S. soldiers on patrol in Baghdad

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 05, 2008

BAGHDAD

A roadside bomb killed two American soldiers patrolling eastern Baghdad yesterday, the U.S. military said, announcing the first combat deaths in the capital in a week.

With security vastly improved in Baghdad since the U.S. buildup last year, the number of American soldiers killed on the streets of the Iraqi capital has declined sharply.

The casualties were the first suffered by the American military in the capital since Aug. 28, when a soldier was killed in a roadside bombing. Another soldier died Tuesday in Baghdad of nonhostile causes, the military said.

Also yesterday, the U.S. military arrested an Iraqi cameraman and three of his family members during a raid on their home in Baghdad, an official with Baghdad TV said.

The arrests came two days after American and Iraqi forces detained a freelance photographer for the Reuters news agency south of Baghdad.

The cameraman, Omar Husham, 28, was arrested at his house in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah, said the television official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. His father and two brothers were also detained, the official said.

The U.S. military said it detained a journalist because he was "assessed to be a threat to security" but would not release the name.

"He was seized along with others suspected of a terrorist bombing network," military spokesman Maj. John Hall said. The military declined to release further details.

The TV official said that Husham had been working for Baghdad TV for two years and covered politics. The station is owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, the major Sunni political group and a member of the Shiite-led Iraqi government.

"Husham is a respected cameraman who has traveled abroad with government officials," the official said. "We demand that concerned officials intervene and for the Americans to release him immediately."

Azamiyah was a center for Sunni insurgent operations until the U.S. military organized local Sunnis who turned against the insurgents.