Iraqi police shoot dead four US soldiers

Iraqi policemen shot dead four US soldiers and their local interpreter in the main northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, an interior ministry official said.

"Four US soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed by two Iraqi policemen who opened fire at them in the Dawasa district of (central) Mosul and then fled," the official told AFP, declining to be named.

The incident took place during a US army visit to the Mosul headquarters of the Iraqi police in charge of protecting the city's bridges, police said. The bullet-riddled body of the interpreter was taken to the local mortuary.

It was the third such fatal shooting involving US soldiers in just over a year in Mosul, one of the country's most restive cities.

On November 12, an Iraqi soldier shot dead two US soldiers in the city before being shot dead himself, but US and Iraqi officials differed sharply on what actually happened.

Iraqi officials said the soldier opened fire after an altercation with the Americans during a joint patrol in the city, but the US military insisted it was an unprovoked shooting inside an Iraqi army compound. More