Suicide car bombing kills 4 US soldiers in Iraq

US diplomat says Iran still supporting Iraq militants
Suicide car bombing kills 4 US soldiers in Iraq

Iranian support

The U.S. force of more than 140,000 troops is reducing its presence in Iraqi towns and cities (File)

BAGHDAD (AlArabiya.net, Agencies)

A suicide bomber detonated a vehicle laden with explosives near a United States patrol in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday, killing four U.S. soldiers and their interpreter, the U.S. military said.

The attack was the deadliest against U.S. forces in Iraq this year. Only four U.S. soldiers were killed in hostile action in all of January, the lowest monthly toll since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

U.S. and Iraqi forces say al-Qaeda militants are making a stand in Mosul after being driven from other parts of the country. Violence there remains high, though it has fallen in most of the country to the lowest level since the war began.

The U.S. ambassador in Baghdad said in a television interview earlier that Iranians are still supporting Shiite militants in Iraq with weapons and training, despite a reduction in violence in Iraq.

Iranian support

" There is also what I would call a terrorist element from some Shiite extremists and we believe that they are supported still by elements within Iran, "
The U.S. ambassador in Baghdad Ryan CrockerRyan Crocker, who departs later this month after two years as the U.S. envoy in Iraq, said talks he had held with Iranian diplomats to discuss Iraq's security had been fruitless.

"There is also what I would call a terrorist element from some Shiite extremists and we believe that they are supported still by elements within Iran," Crocker told the Al Arabiya TV.

"We have seen a lot of evidence: rockets that are fired on us and on the Iraqis that are made in Iran as recently as 2008, explosively formed projectiles that are produced as a result of
Iranian training, and both we and the Iraqis have captured militants who later say they were trained in Iran," he said.

The U.S. force of more than 140,000 troops is reducing its presence in Iraqi towns and cities under a bilateral security pact that took effect on Jan. 1.

"So the evidence is clearly there, I don't think that's in question. The question is what decisions the Iranians are going to make about their future relationship with Iraq."

Tehran has always denied supporting militants in Iraq.

"We reject these comments by the U.S. ambassador. If the U.S. forces have evidence, they should present them to the Iraqi government and let the Iraqi government be the judge," Amir
Arshadi, media attache at the Iranian embassy, told Reuters.

"Iran does not meddle in Iraq's affairs, and this is confirmed by Iraqi officials."

Crocker led talks with Iranian officials on Iraqi security in 2007, billed then as a landmark in U.S.-Iranian relations, which have been frozen since the Iranian revolution in 1979. He said the talks yielded few results, and blamed Tehran.