Iraqi teens bash 2 soldiers

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi teenagers dragged two bloodied U.S. soldiers from a wrecked vehicle and pummeled them with concrete blocks Sunday, witnesses said, describing the killings as a burst of savagery in a city once safe for Americans.

Another soldier was killed by a bomb, and a U.S.-allied police chief was assassinated.

The U.S.-led coalition also said it grounded commercial flights after the military confirmed that a missile struck a DHL cargo plane that landed Saturday at Baghdad International Airport with its wing aflame.

Nevertheless, American officers insisted they were making progress in bringing stability to Iraq, and the U.S.-appointed Governing Council named an ambassador to Washington — an Iraqi-American woman who spent the past decade lobbying U.S. lawmakers to promote democracy in her homeland.

Witnesses to the Mosul attack said gunmen shot two soldiers driving through the city center, sending their vehicle crashing into a wall. The 101st Airborne Division said the soldiers were driving to another garrison.

About a dozen swarming teenagers dragged the soldiers out of the wreckage and beat them with concrete blocks, the witnesses said.

"They lifted a block and hit them with it on the face," said Younis Mahmoud, 19.

It was unknown whether the soldiers were alive or dead when pulled from the wreckage.

Initial reports said the soldiers' throats were cut. But another witness, teenager Bahaa Jassim, said the wounds appeared to have come from bullets.

"One of the soldiers was shot under the chin, and the bullet came out of his head. I saw the hole in his helmet. The other was shot in the throat," Jassim said.

Some people looted the vehicle of weapons, CDs and a backpack, Jassim said.

"They remained there for over an hour without the Americans knowing anything about it," he said. "I went and told other troops."

Television footage showed the soldiers' bodies splayed on the ground as U.S. troops secured the area. One victim's foot appeared to have been severed.

The frenzy recalled the October 1993 scene in Somalia, when locals dragged the bodies of Marines — killed in fighting with warlords — through the streets.

In Baqouba, just north of Baghdad, guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb as a 4th Infantry Division convoy passed, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the military said.