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26 die in Baghdad attacks during US sweep
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-04 15:11
At least 26 people have been killed in two insergent attacks in Baghdad,
raising fears that unrest will mar Iraq's January elections as the US military
said it had rounded up over 200 insurgents in the so-called triangle of death
south of the capital.
An Iraqi mourner
cries over the coffin of a policeman outside al-Yarmuk hospital in
Baghdad's western Al-Amel district. At least 12 Iraqi policemen were
killed in an attack on a police station in Baghdad.
[AFP] | The latest killings Friday, claimed by Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, and his Al-Qaeda-allied group, made
for the deadliest day in the capital since September 30 and came a day after US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted he had underestimated the Iraqi
insurgency.
At least 12 policemen were killed in a commando-style raid on the police
station in the Al-Amel neighborhood, medics said, while at least another 14
people died in a suicide car bombing in the northern district of Al-Adhamiya.
One police officer said about 60 men pulled up in cars, minibuses and taxis,
circled the building and opened fire with machine guns and rocket-propelled
grenades.
The suicide bombing two hours later in the Sunni Muslim district of
Al-Adhamiya, near a Shiite mosque, killed 14 people and wounded 19, and caused
extensive material damage, an interior ministry source said.
Interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhem said the police station attack was
"part of a strategy of increasing terrorist attacks in order to prevent general
elections being held."
As efforts to stabilise the country ahead of the landmark January 30
elections continued, the US military announced the end of a nine-day offensive
launched in the "triangle of death" rebel area south of Baghdad, saying 200
insurgents had been rounded up.
The operation to reclaim control of the area, which earned its nickname from
the assassinations, ambushes and kidnappings carried out there, followed on from
the assault on the western city of Fallujah that was launched on November 8.
The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said it had rounded up 204 suspected
militants and discovered 11 arms caches during the operation, causing "serious
damage to insurgent activity".
Marines were particularly pleased with the role played by Iraqi national
guards, who led several operations during the sweep, despite "a concerted
campaign of intimidation and terror that has cost dozens of national guards
their lives".
And despite domestic opposition to British troops' involvement in the
operation after they were moved north from the relative calm of the southern
city of Basra for the operation, more British troops looked set to be sent to
Iraq ahead of elections.
"It is very likely we are going to see extra British soldiers sent to Iraq
over the elections period," Charles Heyman, chief analyst at Britain's
authoritative Jane's Defence Weekly, told AFP.
"When US forces are under pressure again, they are going to go straight to
the UK and say we want your people as quickly as possible, and the UK will
almost certainly deliver," he said.
The Pentagon already announced this week that it is extending tours of duty
in Iraq for 10,400 combat troops through Iraq's January elections, boosting its
forces to their highest post-invasion levels.
However, legislators in US-led coalition member Ukraine voted 257 out of 397
present in the 450-member chamber to withdraw their 1,600 troops from Iraq, as
their own country continues to be engulfed in political chaos.
Visiting Baghdad on Friday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
stressed the importance of holding elections as planned, "to see people taking
their fate into their own hands."
The alliance has a military training centre in the country, which hopes to
train 1,000 Iraqi officers a year.
In northern Iraq, six people were killed in Mosul, the country's
third-largest city. Five of them died when mortar rounds, followed by automatic
arms fire, targeted the provincial government offices there.
The US military said it had killed an estimated 22 insurgents in the city
after one of their patrols came under attack Friday.
Two US soldiers were killed in two separate convoy attacks near the oil-rich
city of Kirkuk and in Baghdad, the military said.
On the diplomatic circuit, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi extracted German
promises to step up efforts to rebuild his battered nation as Germany thwarted
an alleged plan to attack him by arresting three Islamic extremists.
Allawi began his latest European tour by meeting German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to discuss sorely needed
investment for Iraq.
Interim President Ghazi al-Yawar left for Washington, where he is scheduled
to meet US President George W. Bush on Monday to discuss security and the
January 30 elections.
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