BAQUBAH, Iraq — An assailant hurled a grenade from the upper floor of a children's hospital here Saturday morning, killing three U.S. soldiers and severing the leg of a fourth, according to hospital workers and visitors.
The soldiers had been passing the time playing cards as they guarded the building.
In addition, one U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded Saturday afternoon when their convoy was attacked by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades near Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. officials said.
And this morning, one Marine was killed and another wounded near a bridge in a grenade attack, said a military spokeswoman, Army Spc. Nicole Thompson. She had few details, but the Marines were members of the 1st Expeditionary Force, which patrols the southern approaches to Baghdad.
The attacks, coming just days after U.S. forces killed Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusai during a raid in the northern city of Mosul, raised to 49 the number of U.S. troops slain by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations May 1.
The Baqubah attack marked the second occasion since Bush's speech in which three U.S. soldiers were killed in a single attack. The other deadly day was Thursday, when three 101st Airborne Division soldiers were killed by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades while on patrol in northern Iraq. In June, British forces lost six military police in a single firefight near Amarah, about four hours southeast of Baghdad.
"A lot of people have the sentiment that the war is over -- it's not over," said Pfc. Adam Gable of the 4th Infantry Division as he peered across concertina wire at a swelling crowd of Iraqis checking on relatives who had been in the Baqubah hospital at the time of the attack.
"When people die is the only time when the American media and the public pay attention," he said, adding wistfully, "I could be planning my wedding now. A lot of the young Iraqi women, they remind me of my fiancee."
Baqubah, a city an hour northeast of Baghdad, has been the site of several previous attacks on U.S. soldiers. Two weeks ago, assailants burned a Humvee outside the hospital, and last week they lobbed a grenade at soldiers there, but no one was hurt.
With the deaths of Uday and Qusai Hussein and the arrests Friday near Tikrit of up to 10 of their father's bodyguards, U.S. officials hoped that the capture of Saddam Hussein might be imminent and guerrilla attacks would begin to wane. Some have predicted, however, that the deaths of Hussein's sons could also lead to further retaliatory attacks.
