Al-Qaida extremist kills US soldier in Iraq

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The US military on Tuesday said an American soldier was fatally shot by an al-Qaida extremist in Iraq. An Iraqi policeman was also killed in the fighting. The military said the fatalities occurred in the early hours of the morning Tuesday in the restive northern city of Mosul. A military statement said US and Iraqi security forces were called to a house that an al-Qaida member had entered wearing a suicide vest. As they approached the house, they came under small-arms fire. The death raises the number of American service members killed in Iraq to at least 4,179 since the war started in 2003 according to an Associated Press count.