AN AMERICAN soldier opened fire on fellow troops at a counselling centre inside a US base in Iraq yesterday, killing five before being taken into custody.
The shooting occurred at Camp Liberty, a sprawling base on the western edge of Baghdad, near the international airport.
A brief statement from the US military said the soldier "suspected of being involved with the shooting" was in custody but
gave no further details.
It was unclear what had provoked the attack.
In Washington, Pentagon officials said the shooting happened at a stress clinic, where troops can go for help with combat stress or personal issues. It was unclear whether those killed were workers at the clinic or there for counselling.
"Any time we lose one of our own, it affects us all," US spokesman Colonel John Robinson said.
The death toll was the highest for US personnel in a single attack since 10 April, when a suicide lorry driver killed five American soldiers in a blast near a police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul.
Attacks on officers and sergeants, known as fraggings, were a phenomenon of the Vietnam war as morale in the ranks sank. However, such attacks are believed to be rare in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2005, army sergeant Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death for killing two officers in Kuwait just before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
And there have been several recent incidents in which gunmen dressed as Iraqi soldiers have opened fire on American troops, including an attack in Mosul on 2 May, when two soldiers and the gunman were killed.
