Iraqi guerrillas launch fresh attacks, American soldier killed in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi insurgents killed an American soldier in a roadside bombing in Baghdad on Tuesday, and Spain said it was withdrawing much of its diplomatic staff from Iraq for security reasons, the third coalition country to do so in the past two weeks amid mounting violence.

The Spanish Embassy will remain open but with minimal staffing and a significant number of its 29-member staff is being pulled out, a Foreign Ministry official said.

"We have taken staff out of Baghdad temporarily given that it is a very complicated moment," Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio was quoted as saying by the Spanish news agency Europa Press. She did not say exactly how many diplomats were being withdrawn.

In late October, Bulgaria and the Netherlands moved Embassy staff in Iraq to Jordan, both citing safety concerns following a attacks on diplomatic and humanitarian agencies — including deadly bombings at the Turkish Embassy and the U.N. headquarters.

In Baghdad, the roadside bombing killed one soldier and wounded two others, all from the 1st Armored Division, the U.S. command said. Another soldier was killed Monday and one other wounded when their vehicle struck a land mine in Tikrit.

The deaths brought the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq in November to 23, most in the weekend crash of a transport helicopter shot down Sunday west of Baghdad.

The roadside bombing followed a brief mortar barrage in which at least three projectiles detonated about Monday evening in central Baghdad, causing no damage or casualties, U.S. officials said.

One hit a U.S. Army camp of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the officials said.

In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades Tuesday attacked a hotel housing American troops but caused no casualties, the military said. Three of the grenades hit the building and two others landed in the compound.

A police station in Mosul was also struck overnight by a rocket-propelled grenade, the military said Tuesday. There were no casualties.

Insurgents ambushed a U.S. patrol Tuesday with RPGs in the city of Khaldiyah, located west of Baghdad in the volatile "Sunni Triangle," witnesses said. There were no reports of casualties.

U.S. troops, meanwhile, raided the village of Karasia near Tikrit late Monday, seizing two suspects, Kalashnikov rifles, 14 mortar rounds, a mortar tube, and rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, the military said.