Violence in Iraq spreads with attacks on compound, journalist

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The point-blank shooting of an unarmed British reporter on a Baghdad street and a grenade attack on a U.N. compound raised concern Sunday that Iraq's worsening insurgency -- until now targeting only coalition troops and Iraqis accused of U.S. collaboration -- will spread to Westerners in general.

On Sunday, an assailant shot and killed a U.S. soldier waiting to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University, firing once from close range in the third such assault in nine days. The style was similar to the killing of the young British freelance cameraman, who was shot in the head outside a Baghdad museum on Saturday.

U.S. troops on patrol in Baghdad and other areas have been attacked several times a day, and Iraqi police and civilians perceived to be working with the occupying forces also have been targeted. In the most serious such attack, a bomb blast in the western town of Ramadi killed seven Iraqi police recruits as they graduated from a U.S.-taught training course on Saturday. Dozens more were injured.

U.S. Army Maj. William Thurmond said it was too early to tell whether a pattern was emerging that would suggest insurgents are targeting foreign civilians, but he said such a strategy could thwart news gathering and humanitarian relief efforts.

"Hopefully they're isolated events and we won't have to face them in the future," Thurmond said. "It might work to the advantage of someone who's trying to fight the coalition."

The killing of the television cameraman, 24-year-old Richard Wild, occurred around midday, while the victim was carrying no apparent sign that he was a reporter.

Wild, who arrived in the country two weeks ago aiming to be a war correspondent, was killed by a single pistol shot fired into the base of his skull from close range, colleagues said. The assailant fled into the crowd and was not apprehended.

At close range

The U.S. soldier killed Sunday at Baghdad University also was shot at close range. The soldier from the Army's 1st Armored Division was evacuated to a combat support hospital after the midday shooting. He died later, the U.S. military said.

In a similar incident, an assailant with a pistol shot and critically injured a U.S. soldier in the neck on June 27 as he shopped on a Baghdad street.

On Saturday, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration office in Mosul, 240 miles northwest of Baghdad. The grenade slammed into a wall and damaged several cars, said Hamid Abdel-Jabar, a spokesman for the U.N. special representative in Iraq.

"There's no place for that in any civilized part of the world," Thurmond said. "As soon as we get hold of them, they're gone. We'll find them. We'll attack them. And if necessary we'll kill them."

In other news:

A group calling itself Wakefulness and Holy War claimed responsibility on Sunday for attacks on U.S. troops in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim-dominated town 35 miles west of Baghdad. "We are carrying out operations against the American occupation here in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities," said the statement, released on Iran-financed al-Alam TV in Baghdad. "Saddam and America are two faces of the same coin."

U.S. forces killed two insurgents who fired a rocket-propelled grenade as they drove toward an army outpost in the capital on Saturday.

Insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade into a U.S. Army compound in the town of Abu Sada al-Sagra early Sunday, lightly injuring one soldier.

The military announced the end of a seven-day sweep dubbed Sidewinder, in which 30 Iraqis were killed and 282 detained, while 28 U.S. soldiers were wounded. The military said it confiscated ammunition stocks and hundreds of weapons.