Attacks in Iraq Kill Four U.S. Soldiers

Four American soldiers were killed in separate attacks in the Baghdad area Saturday, the day kidnappers of four Christian peace activists set as a deadline for killing the hostages unless U.S. and Iraqi authorities released all prisoners. Two of the soldiers were killed by small-arms fire southwest of the capital, the U.S. command said in a statement. The others died in a roadside bombing in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and by small arms fire north of the city, the command said. Also Saturday, the U.S. military said an American soldier was killed and 11 others wounded the day before in a suicide car bombing in the Abu Ghraib district of western Baghdad. At least 2,140 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

*Our soldiers were able to hand out some school supplies to the Iraqi children and no oil wells were reported damaged.