Bills

Bills The U.S. military said 54 Iraqis were killed Sunday in the northern city of Samarra as U.S. forces used tanks and cannons to fight their way out of simultaneous ambushes while delivering new Iraqi currency to banks. Residents said the casualty figure was much lower and that the dead were mostly civilians. But by the American account, the battle was the bloodiest combat reported since the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime in a U.S.-led invasion. On Monday, assailants ambushed a U.S. military convoy with small arms fire about 50 miles west of Baghdad, killing one soldier, the U.S. military said. The U.S. military said attackers in Samarra, many wearing uniforms of Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitary force, struck at two U.S. convoys at opposite sides of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. Capt. Andy Deponai, whose tank was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, said the guerrillas had deployed about 30-40 men near each of the two banks where the new currency was being delivered. "It was a large group of people," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt. "Are we looking at this one closely' Yes. Is this something larger than we've seen over the past couple of months' Yes. said, military, two, residents, people, attack, samarra, one, news, monday, japanese, iraq, died, about, web, troops, tanks, tank, south, sites, since, seen, reported, over, officials, new, korean, kindergarten, iraqi, fire, fight, diplomats, deponai, civilians, battle