Roadside Bombs Kill Two Soldiers

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2005 – Two Task Force Baghdad soldiers died when their vehicles were struck by roadside bombs in two separate incidents May 3.

The soldiers' names are being withheld until next of kin are notified. Both incidents remain under investigation.

In other operations, Iraqi soldiers captured a terrorist specifically targeted for planning and carrying out a number of terror attacks on Baghdad's notorious Haifa Street on May 2. They also found a small weapons cache at one site.

Later that night, acting on a tip from Iraqi sources, soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, arrested five suspected terrorists, including a specifically targeted individual, in the Abu Ghraib district in western Baghdad. All five men are believed to have ties to a local terror cell.

The arrests were part of an offensive action aimed at routing insurgency out of the district.

"The terrorists efforts to intimidate Iraqis are failing," said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a Task Force Baghdad spokesman. "We know this because more and more Iraqis are joining the police force every day. Furthermore, private Iraqi citizens are joining the fight by coming forward with information that often leads directly to capturing terrorists and their weapons."

In other combat operations on May 2, a Task Force Baghdad unit in southeast Baghdad apprehended four more suspects.

(Compiled from a Multinational Force Iraq press release.)