2 US Soldiers, Romanian, 24 Iraqis Killed, Including Two Sistani Associates, in a September 21 Report

The Iraq News Agency, INA, reported the following war attacks and deaths.

- One Romanian soldier was killed, five were injured in a roadside bomb near their base in Al-Nassiriyah.

- 3 bodies of killed women were found in Basra.

- Iraqi journalist Muhannad Al-Obaidi, who works in Dar Al-Salam radio in Mosul was assassinated. The radio is owned by the Islamic Party.

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The Iraqi newspaper, Sotaliraq, reported the following war attacks and deaths.

- 8 bodies of Iraqis executed by death squads or killed were found in Baghdad, including four women.

- A man was killed, another was injured by an explosion of a bomb they were making at home in Tal Afar.

- One person was killed, two were injured in a mortar attack in Khalis.

- A leader of Al-Mahdi army militia was killed on Thursday. On Friday, four Iraqis were killed in the same Washash area in retaliation.

- A child was killed, two civilians were injured, including a woman, by Iraqi forces fire in Khalis.

- A policeman and a soldier were killed, three civilians were injured in Kirkuk.

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The US news agency, Associated Press, reported the deaths of two Sistani associates, two US soldiers and a Romanian soldier.

AP Headline: Two more al-Sistani aides killed

By HAMZA HENDAWI Associated Press Writer

Sep 21, 2007, 3:26 PM EDT

BAGHDAD (AP) --

The slayings of two associates of Iraq's top Shi'i cleric in the country's oil-rich south, prompted some clerics to go into hiding or abandon their robes and turbans for their own safety.

The two were killed late Thursday in separate shootings within 30 minutes in the southern cities of Basra and Diwaniyah. They joined at least four associates of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who have been assassinated in the city of Najaf since June, including one stabbed to death about 30-40 yards from the house where the Iranian-born al-Sistani lives.

On Tuesday, an aide to al-Sistani was shot and seriously wounded by gunmen in Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. One of his guards was killed.

In other developments, the U.S. military reported the deaths of two American soldiers on Thursday - one in a roadside bombing in the volatile Diyala province and another in a non-combat incident in the northern Tamim province, home to the disputed city of Kirkuk.

Romania also lost its second soldier since the war started in March 2003 - a corporal killed in a roadside bombing near the Tallil air base in southern Iraq.

Separately, authorities in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq called for the release of an Iranian detained Thursday by U.S. forces in Sulaimaniyah, saying he was part of an official delegation of economists and businessmen.

The U.S. military said the Iranian officer was smuggling in roadside bombs as a member of the elite Iranian paramilitary Quds Force, which is accused by the United States of arming and training Shi'i militias in Iraq.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also said it had sent a letter of protest to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, calling the detention "completely unacceptable and in violation of international regulations."

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