Nu’maniya mayor under investigation over U.S. soldier killing

WASSIT / IraqiNews.com: A joint Iraqi-U.S. force attacked a housing compound in al-Nu’maniya town, north of al-Kut city, on Sunday, calling its mayor for investigation over the killing of a U.S. soldier by sniper fire last week, a Wassit official said. “An Interior Ministry force, under the command of the U.S. forces, launched search raid on a housing compound in Nu’maniya town, 40 km north of Kut, calling Mayor Mohammed Aidan for investigation,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. He said that the mayor will be under investigative custody “because he was not in his office at the time of the killing of the U.S. soldier by a sniper fire”. “U.S. aircraft were flying over Nu’maniya town since early Sunday morning along with the deployment of Iraqi security forces around the compound, where the incident took place last week,” he said. The U.S. soldier, employed by the U.S. Reconstruction Team in Iraq, was killed on Dec. 12, by a sniper bullet while he was on duty over the municipal building in Nu’maniya town. Kut, the capital of Wassit province, is 180 km southeast of Baghdad. SKH/SR/AmR 71