(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-14 20:02

The US command also released more details on the deadly Sept. 10 accident in Baghdad that killed seven soldiers, including two sergeants who helped write a New York Times op-ed article sharply critical of the Pentagon's assessment of the Iraq war.

Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray were among seven NCOs who wrote the Aug. 19 piece entitled "The War As We Saw It" expressing doubts about American gains in Iraq.

Another co-author, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Murphy, was shot in the head while the article was being written. The Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader flown to a military hospital in the United States and expected to survive.

The US command said the accident occurred in the Baghdad suburb of Shula when soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade were in an armored transport truck on their way back from a raid in which they had captured three insurgents suspected of attacks on US and Iraqi soldiers.

"The unit was returning to base after the raid when their vehicle apparently lost control and fell approximately 50 feet from a highway overpass," the military said in a statement. "The vehicle had three personnel in the cab of the truck and 15 US personnel in the armored troop carrier on the back of the vehicle."

In addition to the seven American soldiers killed, two of the prisoners died and the third was injured.

The other 11 US soldiers were all injured. Two have been returned to duty with a third expected to return within a week. The others were all evacuated to the military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. There was no immediate word on their conditions.

Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard said Friday that it came to the aid of an unconscious Iranian fisherman in the sensitive waters around Iraq's oil terminals. An Iranian fishing vessel approached a US coast guard ship charged with guarding Iraq's two oil terminals in the northern waters of the Persian Gulf on Aug. 24 and asked for assistance.

The US ship's medic gave first aid to an unconscious crew member, pumping oxygen into his lungs before instructing the Iranian ship's captain to return to port to receive additional medical help for the crew member.

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