Orgy of Violence as More Die in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Jubilant residents yanked the bodies of four American contractors working for the US-led coalition out of their burning cars yesterday, dragged the charred corpses through the streets, and hung two of them from the bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

Five American soldiers died in a roadside bombing nearby on one of the bloodiest days this year for the coalition governing Iraq.

The brutal treatment of the four corpses came after they were killed in a rebel attack on their four-wheel-drive vehicles in Fallujah, a Sunni Triangle city about 55 kilometers (35 miles) west of Baghdad, scene of some of the worst violence on both sides of the conflict since the beginning of the American occupation a year ago.

It was reminiscent of the 1993 scene in Somalia, when a mob dragged the corpse of a US soldier through the streets of Mogadishu, eventually leading to the American withdrawal from the African nation.

In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the victims were contractors working with the coalition. He did not say what they were doing in Fallujah. All four were men, said Sgt. 1st Class Lorraine Hill, a coalition spokeswoman.

Five American troops died when their military vehicle ran over a bomb in a separate incident to the northwest, among the reed-lined roads through some of Iraq’s richest farmland.

Residents said the bomb attack occurred in Malahma, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Fallujah, where anti-US insurgents are active.

In Washington, defense officials said the slain soldiers were from the Army’s 1st Infantry Division and were in an M-113 armored personnel carrier at the time.

Chanting “Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans,” residents cheered after the grisly assault on two four-wheel-drive civilian vehicles, which left both in flames. Others chanted, “We sacrifice our blood and souls for Islam.”

Associated Press Television News pictures showed one man beating a charred corpse with a metal pole. Others tied a yellow rope to a body, hooked it to a car and dragged it down the main street of town. Two blackened and mangled corpses were hung from a green iron bridge across the Euphrates.