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To: Sully- who wrote (40346)	4/21/2004 3:45:31 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 793964

Bomb blasts target Iraqi police stations, kill at least 40 By Herald wire services Wednesday, April 21, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq - Near-simultaneous explosions ripped through three police stations in the southern city of Basra today, killing more than 40 people, including schoolchildren, and wounding about 200, officials said. At one police station in the Saudia district of Basra, four vehicles were seen destroyed including two school buses. At least one of the school buses appeared to have been full of passengers, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said. A police colonel said about 10 elementary school students whose bus was passing by the Saudia station at the time of the blast were among the dead. The facade of the Saudia station also was heavily damaged, and a hole 6 feet deep and 9 feet wide was left in front. More than 40 people were killed and at least 200 injured in the blast, said Ali Hussein, an emergency physician at Basra's main hospital. British military spokesman Squadron Leader Jonathan Arnold said the blasts were believed to have been caused by car bombs. But the Iraqi colonel said the blast may have been caused by a rocket attack. Also today, about 35 insurgents attacked U.S. Marines in Fallujah with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, setting off a heavy gunbattle in the besieged city, where U.S. troops and residents have been trying to carry out a deal to end the violence. The latest violence came a day after a mortar attack by Iraqi insurgents on a U.S.-run high security prison killed 22 Iraqi inmates and wounded nearly 100, all of whom were on the same side as the attackers. The casualties at Abu Ghraib jail, which was hit by a barrage of 12 high-explosive rounds, were among 4,400 detainees held on suspicion of anti-coalition attacks or membership in Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime, coalition officials said. ``We don't know if they are trying to inspire an uprising or a prison break,'' said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy head of operations in Iraq. It remained unclear who the attack was aimed at. Many Americans are stationed at the prison where Saddam had political opponents tortured. There is a military base nearby from which U.S. troops patrol the area. Abu Ghraib lies on a highway near Fallujah in one of the areas most hostile to U.S. forces, where countless military convoys have been hit by rockets and mines. U.S. Marines patrolling the area discovered where the mortars were fired from, but the insurgents had fled by the time the Americans arrived. The attack was the bloodiest against the sprawling prison complex in western Baghdad. In August, six security prisoners were killed in a mortar attack on the lockup. news.bostonherald.com