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BAGHDAD, JULY 12 (AP): Insurgents ambushed two US military patrols north of Baghdad in separate attacks that killed three US soldiers and an Iraqi civilian.
Also, the Philippines government rejected an insurgent group's ultimatum to pull its small peacekeeping force out of Iraq.
The group has threatened to kill a Filipino man it is holding hostage. A roadside bomb attack on a US patrol in the city of Samarra, a hotbed of violence 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad,killed two soldiers Sunday afternoon and wounded three others, the military said.
An earlier attack on a US convoy in Beiji, 145 kilometers (90 miles) south of the northern city of Mosul, began Sunday morning when a roadside bomb exploded. An enemy vehicle then raced toward the convoy, firing at the soldiers, who shot back and killed the driver, the military said.
A soldier and a civilian traveling behind the patrol were killed. A second soldier was wounded and evacuated.
Thick black smoke poured over the area from an oil tanker set alight in the attack. The deaths came a day after four US Marines were killed in a vehicle accident near Camp Fallujah in western Iraq.
More than 875 service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq. Militants from a group calling itself "The Islamic Army of Iraq - Khaled bin Al-Waleed Brigade" initially gave the Philippines until Sunday night to agree to withdraw its 51-member peacekeeping force by July 20 - a month ahead of schedule.
The group threatened to kill truck driver Angelo dela Cruz if the Philippines did not comply. The group extended the deadline by two days, until Tuesday, a Philippines government official said early Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The extension came hours after the government in Manilla rejected the militants' ultimatum. "In line with our commitment to the free people of Iraq, we reiterate our plan to return our humanitarian contingent as scheduled on Aug. 20, 2004," Foreign Secretary Delia Albert told reporters after an emergency cabinet meeting late Sunday.
Dela Cruz's wife and brother were heading to Baghdad, Albert said, and the government remained hopeful he would be released. Philippine negotiators were working through mediators Sunday to ntry to free dela Cruz, a diplomat in Baghdad with knowledge of the situation said.
In a video purportedly from the militants broadcast Sunday on the Arab television station Al-Arabiya, a masked man holding a sword said that if the Philippines complies, dela Cruz will no longer be a hostage but will be held as a protected prisoner of war. After Filipino troops leave, he would be released, the man said.
A deadline for two other hostages - Bulgarian truck drivers held by a separate group demanding the release of all Iraqi detainees - expired Saturday morning.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi said Sunday he had unconfirmed information the two were alive. At a news conference in Bulgaria, Pasi appealed to the hostage takers, saying Islam calls for "mercy for the poor, the hungry and the sick."
He said one hostage, Georgi Lazov, had diabetes, while the other, Ivaylo Kepov, had suffered a stroke.
The group holding the Bulgarians, the Tawhid and Jihad movement linked to Jordanian terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also claimed responsibility Sunday for an attack Thursday on a military headquarters in the city of Samarra that killed five US soldiers and an Iraqi National Guardsman.
To prevent the infiltration of foreign fighters, Syria and Iraq agreed to set up a special force to patrol their 580-kilometer (360-mile) shared border, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said Sunday in Damascus, Syria, after meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. In other developments, Iraq's national security adviser,
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