[Shadow_Group] Fw: Three Car Bombs in Iraq Kill at Least 26

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

----- Original Message --



        Go to Original<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=0G31ESJTH1D0WCRBAEZSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6405357>

        Three Car Bombs in Iraq Kill at Least 26
        By Luke Baker
        Reuters

        Monday 04 October 2004 

        BAGHDAD - A series of car bomb blasts tore through Baghdad and the northern Iraq city of Mosul on Monday, killing at least 26 people and wounding more than 100.

        As the car bombers struck, U.S. forces kept up operations against rebel-held towns elsewhere aimed at establishing control throughout the country ahead of January elections. Air strikes were launched against suspected militants in Falluja.

        In the first blast in western Baghdad, a car blew up near one of the entrances to the heavily fortified Green Zone, close to an Iraqi security forces recruitment post, killing at least 15 people and wounding 80, an official at Yarmouk hospital said.

        No U.S. troops were killed or wounded, a spokesman said.

        A second bomb exploded about an hour later as a U.S. military convoy was passing along Baghdad's Sadoun Street, a major thoroughfare on the eastern side of the Tigris river, where several hotels used by foreign contractors are located.

        Witnesses said a small truck charged toward a group of four-wheel-drive vehicles and detonated, destroying half a dozen cars, shattering scores of shop windows and spraying wreckage across the street. At least six people were killed and more than a dozen wounded, a source at Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

        "I saw a head in one place and a leg in another. This was a suicide bombing," said one bystander as thick clouds of black smoke billowed behind him and U.S. helicopters circled overhead.

        The U.S. military said no soldiers were killed or wounded.

        In a third attack, a car bomb exploded outside a primary school in the northern city of Mosul, killing five people, including two children, police said. Earlier police had said seven were killed, but later revised the toll. Eleven people were wounded, including five children.

        The car, driven by two men, may have exploded prematurely, a U.S. officer at the scene said, as there was no obvious target in the area, a quiet district in the south of the city.

        Samarra Calmer

        Operations to restore government control continued in Samarra, a city north of Baghdad that U.S. and Iraqi forces overran on Friday.

        In a 36-hour blitz, some 3,000 U.S. troops and 2,000 Iraqi soldiers, backed by U.S. warplanes and artillery, stormed the city, 60 miles north of Baghdad, in an effort to dislodge an estimated 500 to 1,000 guerrillas.

        U.S. forces said they killed 125 fighters and captured 88 in the assault, which destroyed dozens of buildings and, according to locals, inflicted a heavy toll on civilians.

        Residents of Samarra tried to bury their dead on Monday -- the cemetery was off limits on Sunday -- progressing through the streets of the city waving sticks with white flags attached, family members weeping as they bore the coffins for burial.

        Iraq's interior minister, who comes from Samarra, said he did not believe any civilians had been killed in the offensive, a statement which drew an angry response from residents. The U.S. military said it had tried to avoid civilian casualties.

        Aid agencies returned to the city on Sunday, delivering food, water and medicine to families forced to flee. Much of the city still lacked water and electricity on Monday.

        Battles Lie Ahead

        The two biggest challenges facing U.S. and Iraqi forces are Falluja and Ramadi, guerrilla strongholds west of Baghdad which the U.S. military tried unsuccessfully to capture in April.

        There are also areas of Baghdad, including the Shi'ite slum district of Sadr City, that will have to be seized from rebels.

        On Monday, U.S. warplanes bombarded areas of Falluja for the third consecutive night, targeting suspected hideouts of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his followers.

        Doctors in Falluja said at least seven people were killed and 14 wounded and said some were civilians. The military said it was a building used by Zarqawi's group to store weapons.

        In other incidents, a senior official in Iraq's Science and Technology Ministry was assassinated as he drove to work in Baghdad on Monday, and the chief of police in Balad Ruz, a rebel bastion just north of Baghdad, was also killed.



        -------

        Jump to TO Features for Tuesday October 5, 2004    
         Today's TO Features -------------- FOCUS: As Deadlines Hit, Rolls of Voters Show Big Surge Kerry Accuses GOP of Suppressing Voting 26 Dead as Car Bombs Rock Baghdad Marc Ash | Edwards v. Halliburton t r u t h o u t  Home 

      © Copyright 2004 by TruthOut.org


     

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/shadowgroup-l/attachments/20041004/2c292b4e/attachment.html>