Third suicide attack on U.S. forces this week kills one soldier

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Three suicide bombers in a furniture truck blew themselves up at the gates of a U.S. Army base Thursday, killing one soldier and wounding 14. It was the third suicide attack on American troops in Iraq this week.

Three wounded soldiers were evacuated from the headquarters of the 82nd Airborne Division west of Baghdad to a combat hospital and the other 11 wounded were treated and returned to duty, the U.S. military reported.

There were no U.S. fatalities in the previous two suicide attacks this week, indicating defenses erected at American facilities were paying off.

Three Iraqis were killed in the truck that exploded Thursday at Champion Base in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad.

Also Thursday, the military reported one U.S. soldier drowned and another was missing after a patrol boat accident on the Tigris River in Baghdad.

"The soldiers were conducting routine patrols on the Tigris River when one of the soldiers fell overboard, and the other soldier jumped in to save him," the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The incident occurred Wednesday, and the drowned soldier from the Army's 1st Armored Division was found Thursday morning, the statement said.

Also Thursday, Ghazi al-Talabani, director of the Northern Field Protection Force, which guards oil pipelines in northern Iraq, said an explosion set a pipeline ablaze, forcing officials to halt the flow.

He said the pipeline links the Beiji refinery in northern Iraq with the al-Doura refinery near Baghdad.

In Samarra, another volatile city 60 miles north of Baghdad, two members of the U.S.-led paramilitary Civil Defense Corps were shot and killed overnight while on patrol, witnesses said Thursday. The attackers were not identified.