Handover of Hussein's Palace Is Disprupted by Mortar Attack
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:59 p.m. ET
nytimes.com
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol Tuesday in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least 17 people, and three U.S. soldiers died in two separate attacks, pushing the American death toll in Iraq to 2,100, officials said.
In Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, insurgents fired a mortar at a U.S. ceremony attended by top officials to hand over a presidential palace to Iraqi authorities, sending the U.S. ambassador and top commander scrambling for cover but causing no injuries.
The attackers in Kirkuk lured the patrol to a busy commercial street by shooting a policemen, then struck with the suicide bomb as authorities investigated the shooting, said police Capt. Farhad Talabani. The bombing took place on a road leaving Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad.
Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qader gave the casualty figure of 17 dead and 26 wounded but did not say how many were civilians.
Attacks on the security forces in Kirkuk are common. Insurgents last week in Kirkuk opened fire on a police patrol, killing three officers, while a roadside bomb a few miles away killed two more police officers.
The U.S. military said a U.S. soldier assigned to the 2nd Marine Division wask killed after a bomb detonated near his vehicle Monday near Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad. There are several U.S. Army units assigned to the Marine division.
In addition, two soldiers from Task Force Freedom were killed Saturday by small arms fire while on patrol in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, another statement said.
As of Tuesday, at least 2,100 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,638 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The attack on the ceremony in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, occurred as a U.S. colonel was giving a speech. A mortar whistled as it fell into a field about 300 yards away from the palace, but it failed to explode, according to an AP reporter at the scene.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, briefly went inside the palace, but emerged a few minutes later to continue the ceremony.
''This was an ineffectual attempt to stop the progress that goes on every day in Iraq,'' said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the U.S. command.
Later, Hamad Hamoud Shagtti, the Salahuddin provincial governor, received a symbolic key to the palace and a deputy governor raised the Iraqi flag over the complex. They toured the building, which Saddam ordered built for his mother in 1991 and is considered the largest and most elaborate of the palaces constructed during his rule.
Johnson said the handover of the palace was an important step forward in Iraq's development, something that insurgent attacks have done little to slow down, despite daily violence.
The palace is part of a complex on more than 1,000 acres overlooking the Tigris River. There are 136 buildings on the property, with a combined 1.5 million square feet of administrative and living space, including 18 palaces, the U.S. command said.
The turnover of the complex to the Finance Ministry and the provincial government was ''a landmark event highlighting the increased capability of the Iraqi government to administer and govern itself,'' said a statement by Col. Billy J. Buckner, a spokesman for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
Since it was taken over by U.S. troops in 2003, the palace has served as a division headquarters for U.S. forces based in the region.
''Although 28 other coalition operating bases have already been turned over to Iraqi Security Forces control this year, the Tikrit Palace complex is the most significant transition of real estate thus far,'' the U.S. statement said.
Iraq's anti-corruption commission said Tuesday that members of the former government who are under investigation will not be allowed to run in next month's parliamentary elections.
Judge Radhi al-Radhi issued a statement saying there are some ministers, undersecretaries and directors who are accused of financial and administrative corruption.
''Since there are financial corruption dossiers for these officials at the Iraqi special courts, they are not qualified to take part as candidates in the coming elections,'' the statement said.
A commission official, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said Minister of Public Works Nasreen Berwari, who is the wife of Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer, and Hazin al-Shaalan, a former defense minister, are among those banned.
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Associated Press writer Zaki Mahmoud in Tikrit contributed to this report.
* Copyright 2005 The Associated Press |
