WAR STORIES
The battle in Ramadi, the military said in a statement, began about 3 P.M. on Wednesday after a roadside bomb — the biggest killer of American troops in Iraq — exploded near an American convoy. The convoy was then attacked with rifle fire and rocket-propelled grenades, the statement said.
The fighting widened into a battle with between 75 and 100 insurgents, as soldiers on the ground called in fire from unidentified aircraft. Reports from Ramadi on Wednesday said that at least one United States helicopter was involved in the battle.
In the fighting, 13 marines were injured, though none of them were in danger of dying, the statement said. In addition to the 25 killed, the statement said 17 insurgents were wounded and another 25 arrested.
Early today, a firefight broke out on Haifa Street in downtown Baghdad as Iraqi police and national guardsmen carried out another raid against insurgents and criminals in the capital.
In addition to Ramadi, American troops battled insurgents overnight in Samarra, a hard-line Sunni Muslim city, killing what a military official said were six attackers. In Baghdad, a rocket hit a hospital, killing four patients, and a car exploded on a narrow street, killing another four people
