Insurgents attack U.S. convoy in Iraq, 3 injured

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- A roadside bomb injured three American troops Thursday near Fallujah, Iraq, a day after the grisly killing and mutilation of four American contract workers in the city. The top U.S. administrator in Iraq said the deaths would not go unpunished.\nIn Ramadi, Iraq, west of Fallujah, six Iraqi civilians died and four were wounded Wednesday evening in a car bombing at a market, said Lt. Col. Steve Murray, a coalition spokesman.\nIraqi police had not determined whether it was detonated by remote control or whether there was a suicide bomber within the car, Murray said.\nInsurgents struck a U.S. convoy with a bomb just outside Fallujah Thursday, wounding three Americans, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said. They were flown to a combat support hospital.\nAlso Thursday, two explosions near a U.S.-escorted fuel convoy in northern Baghdad, Iraq, wounded at least one Iraqi.\nThe attacks followed the ambush of the four American contractors in Fallujah Wednesday. Frenzied mobs dragged the burned, mutilated bodies of the Americans through the streets and strung two of them up from a bridge.\nFive U.S. soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division also died Wednesday when a bomb exploded under their M-113 armored personnel carrier in Malahma, Iraq, northwest of Fallujah, making it the bloodiest day for Americans in Iraq since Jan. 8.\nPolice retrieved the remains of the four contractors Wednesday night, wrapped them in blankets and gave them to U.S. forces, said Iraqi police officer Lt. Salah Abdullah.\n"We were shocked because our Islamic beliefs reject such behavior," he said.\n"We will pacify that city," Kimmitt said. "We will be back in Fallujah. It will be at the time and place of our choosing."\n"The event happened very, very rapidly, and by the accounts of the Iraqi police, by the time they got there, the situation was pretty well complete at that point," Kimmitt said.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to Germany's ZDF television, said the United States is "not going to withdraw, we're not going to be run out" of Iraq.\n"America has the ability to stay, fight an enemy and defeat an enemy," he said. "We wish no soldier, no civilian, had been killed in this conflict. We also know sometimes to achieve a noble purpose, it does take the loss of life."\nPowell said he believed there would be a new U.N. resolution on Iraq "as we move closer to the first of July."\nThe top U.S. administrator in Iraq, Lt. Paul Bremer, condemned the killings, as well as the combat deaths of five American soldiers on the same day, and said their deaths would not go unpunished.\n"Yesterday's events in Fallujah are dramatic examples of the ongoing struggle between human dignity and barbarism," he said at a graduation ceremony for police cadets. "The acts we have seen were despicable and inexcusable. ... They violate the tenets of all religions, including Islam, as one of the foundations of civilized society."\nIraqi police manned roadside checkpoints in and around Fallujah Thursday, but no U.S. troops could be seen in the city. Shops and schools were open.\n"We will not let any foreigner enter Fallujah," said resident Sameer Sami. "Yesterday's attack is proof of how much we hate the Americans"