Bomb kills 2 American soldiers in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Police discovered a decapitated body in an orange jumpsuit and a head in a bag on the banks of the Tigris River, authorities said Thursday, prompting fears that a second Bulgarian hostage has been killed.

The deepening hostage crises across Iraq led Kenya, facing an ultimatum by militants to behead three of its citizens in captivity, to tell its people Thursday to leave Iraq. The kidnappings have further complicated Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s efforts to persuade reluctant nations to join the U.S.-led coalition and send troops here.

Today, the U.S. military said two soldiers were killed and one was wounded in a roadside bombing in the city of Samarrah on Thursday. Separately American forces launched a “precision strike” on insurgents tied to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the turbulent western city of Fallujah.

The military said in a statement sent to the Associated Press that the attack was conducted in coordination with the Iraqi government. They reported no casualties, but Dr. Kamal Al-Ani said from a Fallujah hospital that five civilians, including three children, were wounded this morning after an American warplane fired a missile that landed in the garden of a house in the Jubail neighborhood, south of Fallujah. It appeared to be the same strike.

Allawi asked Egypt, which also has a citizen threatened with decapitation in Iraq, “to talk to some Arab and Islamic leaders to send forces to protect” a U.N. mission in the country, he told reporters in Cairo. But an official in the Egyptian president’s office said Egypt would send troops only if other Arabs do so first. On Wednesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said: “Egypt will not send forces in any case.”

In new violence Thursday, insurgents fought a running gunbattle with U.S. soldiers on Haifa Street in central Baghdad during a sweep of suspected militants, officials said. Six Iraqis were wounded, Health Ministry official Saad al-Amili said.

Iraqi forces arrested 270 people, including several “non-Iraqi Arabs,” and discovered a huge cache of weapons, Interior Ministry official Sabah Khadum said. But U.S. officials said only 48 suspected criminals and insurgents were arrested.

U.S. Marines also announced that they killed 25 insurgents, wounded 17 and captured 25 others during a gunbattle in the western city of Ramadi on Wednesday. Fourteen Marines were injured, none with life-threatening wounds, the Marines said.

The decapitated body, found Wednesday night on the banks of the Tigris in the town of Beiji, was clad in an orange prison-style jumpsuit that kidnappers have forced some captives to wear before beheading them. Beside the body, which was still unidentified, was a head in a sack, said Beiji police official Taha Abdullah.

Bulgarian officials were investigating whether the remains were those of a man from that country identified as Ivaylo Kepov, 32, one of two Bulgarians who were kidnapped June 29 near the northern city of Mosul.

The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said another headless body found in the Tigris on July 14 was identified as the other hostage – Bulgarian truck driver Georgi Lazov, 30.