Iraqi insurgents attack fuel convoy; three Marines killed west

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Two U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad on Friday, one when insurgents attacked a convoy transporting fuel on the west side of the capital, the military said. An Iraqi driver in the convoy was also killed.

Also, two American soliders and a number of civilian contractors were missing after the convoy attack, Pentagon officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Twelve others were wounded in the assault, including an Iraqi civilian believed nearby when the attack set off fires, officials said. It was not immediately clear if any of the wounded were U.S. troops.

"These were fuel trucks," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said at a Baghdad news conference. "When they were attacked by the enemy, they probably had a collateral effect on other vehicles on the road."

Three Marines were killed a day earlier in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the military said on Friday. It wasn't clear if they died in Fallujah, where Marines have been battling insurgents since Monday.

In Friday's violence, gunmen carrying automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades struck a tanker truck in a convoy in Abu Ghraib on the main highway entering western Baghdad, killing a soldier.

The second soldier was killed in an attack using roadside bombs and small arms on Camp Cooke, a U.S. base in northern Baghdad, the military said.

At least 646 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.