Six U.S., 4 British troops killed in Iraq

Story Highlights

• Downed U.S. Army chopper damaged by small-arms fire, military says
• Military: Four British troops killed when insurgents attack Humvee outside Basra
• Six U.S. troops killed in separate attacks in and around Baghdad
• Sunni TV station manager killed, 12 people wounded in attack on station

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Ten coalition troops were killed in Iraq over the last two days, four of them in the deadliest attack on British troops since November, the U.S. and British militaries said Thursday.

The four British troops and a civilian translator were ambushed early Thursday as they returned from a mission west of the southern city of Basra, British military spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Stratford-Wright said.

Insurgents wielding small arms and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the troops' armored Humvee about 340 miles (547 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, said Stratford-Wright. A roadside bomb also was employed in the attack, he said.

The soldiers fired back and "one or more of the attackers were killed," the spokesman said.

A British soldier was hospitalized after being seriously wounded in the fray.

The troops were attacked earlier in the night as well, but they escaped the first attack without casualties, Stratford-Wright said.

The second ambush was the deadliest assault on British troops since insurgents killed four servicemen in an attack on their patrol boat in a Basra waterway.

Basra is the command headquarters for British forces in Iraq.

The number of British troop deaths in the war stands at 140.

The U.S. military also announced Thursday that six of its troops had been killed in the past two days in a string of attacks around Baghdad. (Watch Sen. John McCain as he says Americans aren't getting the full story on Baghdad )

One soldier was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb Thursday in the Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.

Two soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb detonated north of the capital Wednesday, the military said. One soldier was wounded in the attack.

Two more soldiers were killed Wednesday and three were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded south of the capital, and another soldier was killed in eastern Baghdad during a firefight with insurgents wielding small arms, the military said.

The number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war is 3,260. Seven civilian contractors also have been killed.

TV manager killed in assault

Insurgents attacked a television station aligned with a Sunni political party Thursday, killing an assistant manager and wounding 12 staffers, according to the Iraqi Islamic Party, which owns the station. (Watch a GOP presidential hopeful say, "We can't make Iraqis get along" )

The attackers detonated a car bomb before attacking Baghdad TV with machine guns, said the party, the most powerful Sunni Arab bloc in Iraq.

"The channel committed since the first day to moderate national attitude. It defended Iraqi citizens, regardless the religion and sect. That made the channel distinguishable among other channels in Iraq," the party said.

The Iraqi Islamic Party condemned the strike as a "cowardly criminal attack" and called it a "hopeless attempt to shut down the voice of the true."

Arrests made in twin truck bombings

Iraqi security forces raided a home Tuesday in Nineveh province and arrested two suspects in connection with twin truck bombings March 27 that killed 152 people in Tal Afar, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The Tal Afar bombings were the deadliest single attack since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, according to a high-ranking Iraqi Interior Ministry official.

The blasts erupted in Shiite districts of the predominantly Turkmen city and set off a wave of reprisals in which 70 people were killed in one of the city's Sunni neighborhoods.

Nineteen other suspects were arrested during the Tuesday raids, but it wasn't clear if they were connected to the Tal Afar attacks.

On Friday, Iraqi security forces arrested 18 police officers in Nineveh province in connection with the reprisal killings in Tal Afar, said Gen. Wathiq Abdul Qadir al-Hamadani, head of Nineveh police.

The 18 are accused of working with a Shiite militia to kill people in the Wahad Sunni district. The suspects were identified by members of targeted Sunni families, said al-Hamadani, who would not divulge the branch with which the police were affiliated.

Four injured in U.S. Army chopper downing

A U.S. Army helicopter went down Thursday south of Baghdad, injuring four of the nine passengers and crew on board, the U.S. military said.

The chopper appeared to be damaged by small-arms fire, a military official said. It wasn't clear whether the gunfire downed the aircraft.

The pilot may have decided to land when he realized the helicopter was hit, the official said.

Since January 20, eight U.S. helicopters -- six of them military, two belonging to security contractors -- have been shot down or forced to make hard landings.

Twenty-eight people have died in those incidents.

Other developments

Ten Iraqi soldiers were shot dead Thursday near the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi army official said. At least 30 attackers in cars used rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in an assault on an army post , the official said. One soldier was wounded in the attack in Badoosh, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Mosul.

President Bush and Democrats blamed each other Wednesday for failing to pass a $100 billion emergency spending bill devoted largely to funding the war in Iraq. Bush accused Democrats of politicizing the bill, while Democrats say they are obeying the will of most Americans, whom they say want U.S. soldiers out of Iraq. (Watch Bush say the Democrats' bill undermines troops

)

A week after admitting it made myriad errors in the friendly fire death of former NFL star Pat Tillman, the Army said Wednesday that two soldiers killed in February also may have been killed by their comrades, according to The Associated Press. The Army said it is investigating the deaths of Pvt. Matthew Zeimer, 18, of Glendive, Montana, and Spc. Alan E. McPeek, 20, of Tucson, Arizona, who were killed in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the AP reported. (Full story)

CNN's Jennifer Deaton, Barbara Starr and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

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