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Insurgents in Iraq kill 7 Iraqis, 4 US troops
(Agenices)
Updated: 2004-08-04 00:46
Insurgents launched a fresh wave of attacks in Iraq, killing six Iraqi
national guardsmen in a suicide car bombing and four U.S. soldiers in separate
incidents in Baghdad and the volatile west of the country.
A roadside bomb Tuesday also killed a local police chief in Baghdad, just
hours before interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was due to return home after
trying to win support from neighboring countries to stabilize Iraq.
Two US soldiers
carry human remains as Iraqi National Guardsmen and US troops inspect the
site of a suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint on the northern road heading
to the city of Baquba. [AFP] | The suicide car
bomb blast at a checkpoint outside the town of Baquba wounded six other Iraqi
guardsmen, said National Guard Lieutenant Mohamed al-Dulaimi at the scene.
Major Deborah Stewart of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division said the wounded had
been evacuated to a nearby hospital.
Baquba, 40 miles north of Baghdad, has been the scene of numerous insurgent
strikes in recent months, including a suicide car bomb last week that killed 70
people, many of them young men lining up to join the police force.
The U.S. military said two American soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb
blast overnight on Baghdad's western outskirts.
And two U.S. marines were killed in action in the violent Anbar province in
the country's west. One died on Monday from wounds and the other Tuesday, the
U.S. military said.
The four deaths raise to 681 the number of American troops killed in action
since the start of the war to oust Saddam Hussein in March last year.
Besides attacking U.S. soldiers, insurgents often target Iraq's fledgling
security forces, accusing them of collaborating with some 160,000 foreign troops
in the country.
They have also assassinated a number of senior officials as part of efforts
to destabilize Allawi's government, which took over from U.S.-led occupiers on
June 28.
Early Tuesday, a roadside bomb in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district killed
the head of a local police station and wounded two of his bodyguards, police
said.
The bomb exploded as Colonel Moayad Mahmoud Bashar, chief of the Mamoun
police station, was driving past.
Allawi has spent the past 10 days visiting Iraq's Arab partners to shore up
support for his government and seek help in stemming an insurgency that has
disrupted reconstruction.
He especially sought to get Iraq's neighbors, including Syria, to tighten
border controls to stop foreign Islamic fighters from crossing over to join the
insurgency.
A government official said Allawi would arrive back on Tuesday afternoon.
One of his most pressing security challenges is a spiraling hostage crisis,
which has forced the Philippines to withdraw troops and at least two foreign
firms to pull out of Iraq.
TRUCKERS STILL HELD
Talks to free seven foreign truck drivers threatened with execution have
stalled since Monday, mediators said. The three Indians, three Kenyans and an
Egyptian were seized last month.
A tribal sheik trying to win their release said on Tuesday he was waiting to
hear from the kidnappers, who have demanded their Kuwaiti employer leave Iraq
and compensate families who suffered in U.S. air strikes on the rebellious city
of Falluja.
"Negotiations are still stopped at the moment. I have no idea on the fate of
the hostages," Hisham al-Dulaymi said.
There has been a surge in kidnappings since Manila pulled its troops out last
month to save the life of a Filipino driver.
Some of the kidnappings have been carried out by groups linked to al Qaeda
ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has claimed responsibility for some of the
biggest suicide attacks in Iraq and the killing of several foreign hostages.
Islamist Web Sites Monday showed militants loyal to Zarqawi shooting dead a
Turkish captive. In response to the killing and a wave of kidnappings of Turkish
drivers, a Turkish truckers' group said it would stop transporting goods to U.S.
forces.
Al Jazeera television said Monday a Somali held by militants linked to
Zarqawi would be freed after his Kuwaiti employer agreed to halt operations in
Iraq. However, there has been no word on his fate since.
Scores of hostages from two dozen countries have been seized in the last four
months. Most have been freed but several have been executed -- at least four by
beheading.
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