Yep, things keep getting better in Iraq:
About 75 Die in Wave of Iraqi Attacks
13 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Alistair Lyon
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Rebels bent on disrupting a handover to Iraqi rule bloodied five cities Thursday with coordinated assaults on local security forces in which about 75 people, including three U.S. soldiers, were killed.
The violence in Baquba, Falluja, Ramadi, Mosul and Baghdad intensified a sustained campaign by Iraqi insurgents and foreign militants to sabotage Iraq (news - web sites)'s formal transition from U.S.-led occupation to an interim government in six days' time.
More than 200 people were wounded.
In Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, multiple car bombings on police buildings rocked the city, killing at least 44 people and wounding 216, the Health Ministry said.
Fighting in Anbar province, which includes Falluja and Ramadi, killed at least nine people and wounded 27. Clashes around Baquba killed 13 and wounded 15, the ministry said.
At least seven large explosions shook Mosul and local television ordered residents to stay at home. Police blocked off all major roads and announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
Apart from the Iraqi casualties, the U.S. military said an American soldier had been killed and three wounded in the blasts. It said a security guard was also killed.
Gunfire rattled across Mosul as insurgents fought running battles with U.S. troops and Iraqi police.
At least four members of Iraq's national guard were killed and two civilians wounded by a car bomb blast in southern Baghdad, an officer in the paramilitary force said. Hospital sources said five people were killed in the blast.
ZARQAWI'S FINGERPRINTS
Scores of black-clad gunmen, some claiming loyalty to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, attacked a police station and other government buildings in Baquba, 60 km (40 miles) northwest of Baghdad, in a dawn assault.
A U.S. military spokesman said two American soldiers had been killed in an ambush. U.S. forces had responded with air strikes after gunmen captured the civic center and attacked another government building. Two insurgents were killed.
Many of the fighters wore yellow headbands bearing the name of a Muslim militant group "Saraya al-Tawhid and Jihad" (Battalions of Unification and Holy War). They handed out leaflets warning Iraqis not to "collaborate" with Americans.
"The flesh of collaborators is tastier than that of Americans," the leaflets said.
Arabic television channel Al Jazeera showed hooded fighters brandishing their weapons in Baquba and saying they were followers of Zarqawi. Bodies lay in the streets nearby.
Zarqawi's Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad group has claimed responsibility for many attacks in Iraq, including this week's beheading of a South Korean hostage.
Witnesses said an Iraqi hospital director and his driver were killed on a road near Baquba. A police car burned nearby.
In Ramadi, insurgents fired mortars at two police stations and the house of a security official in Ramadi, 68 miles west of Baghdad. They also clashed with U.S. troops.
Fierce clashes raged for two hours between U.S. Marines and rebels in Falluja, west of Baghdad, and U.S. planes dropped 500-pound bombs on guerrilla positions, a Reuters photographer with the Marines said. The Marines later withdrew and local officials said a cease-fire agreement had been reached.
HELICOPTER DOWN
A U.S. Cobra helicopter was shot down during the Falluja fighting but the crew walked away unhurt, Marines said.
Under a truce agreed last month, U.S. forces pulled out of the city and handed control to an Iraqi brigade led by army officers who had served under former President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the U.S. army in Iraq, said clashes in a number of Iraqi cities had subsided by noon.
"With the exception of what we are seeing in Baquba, most seem to be under control right now," he told reporters.
A senior U.S. officer said Saddam loyalists, not Zarqawi followers, were likely to have staged the attacks, but did not explain the reason for this assessment.
Eight British naval personnel seized by Iran when they strayed out of Iraqi waters Monday were released and put on a plane to leave the Gulf region, British diplomats said. |
