Iraqi Gunman Fires on U.S. Soldiers; 2 Killed, 9 Hurt

A man wearing an Iraqi army uniform fired on a group of American soldiers yesterday, killing two and wounding nine, the U.S. military said.

The shooting took place in an Iraqi army compound near the northern city of Tuz in Salahadin province during a meeting between an U.S. commander and Iraqi soldiers, the military said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. An investigation is ongoing, it said. Tuz, 110 miles (177 kilometers) north of Baghdad, is populated mostly by ethnic Turkmen and Kurds.

It was the second time the U.S. military in the country has been involved in a shootout since Aug. 31, when the Obama administration announced the official end to American combat operations and handed control of security to Iraq. About 50,000 U.S. troops remain to advise and train Iraqi forces before a full withdrawal by the end of next year.

“This is a tragic and cowardly act,” the senior U.S. commander in northern Iraq, Major General Tony Cucolo of the Third Infantry Division, said in the statement. The attack is “not reflective of the Iraqi security forces.”

The gunman was identified as enlisted soldier Soran Rahman Saleh Wali, Agence France-Presse reported. He opened fire following an argument and was shot dead, AFP said. An Iraqi soldier also died in the incident, the U.S. military said in a separate statement today without providing further details.

On Sept. 5, the U.S. military responded to a request by Iraq to help thwart an attack on an Iraqi military base in Baghdad, which resulted in an hour-long battle and left 12 Iraqi soldiers dead, the Associated Press reported.

Violence has picked up in Iraq, coinciding with a political vacuum following parliamentary elections in March that failed to produce a clear winner. U.S. and Iraqi officials have insisted Iraq’s forces are capable of taking over from U.S. troops.

At least 4,421 U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, according to a tally on the U.S. Defense Department website.

To contact the reporter on this story: Caroline Alexander in London at calexander1@bloomberg.net.

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