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US troops attack insurgents planning raid
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-30 21:13
US troops backed by helicopters and a jet attacked insurgents planning a
nighttime ambush near an American base north of Baghdad, killing six militants
and wounding and capturing five others, the U.S. command said Sunday.
People gather at the site of the explosion in
the Shiite village of Huweder, about 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraq,
Sunday, Oct. 30, 2005, where a bomb hidden in a truck loaded with dates
exploded Saturday evening, killing 26 people and injuring at least 34.
[AP] |
Insurgents killed six Iraqi civilians
in scattered attacks on Sunday, one day after more than two dozen people died in
a truck bombing in a Shiite farming village north of Baghdad.
The surge in violence came as Iraqi political blocs unveiled their lists of
candidates for Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, which the United States and its
coalition partners hope will restore enough stability so they can begin bringing
their forces home next year. The election commission said it has received
candidate lists from 21 coalitions and from 207 other political parties or
individuals.
The U.S. operation against the insurgents was Saturday night near Taji, a
U.S. air base 12 miles north of Baghdad. Troops saw the militants moving along a
canal toward a commonly used ambush site, the military said in a statement.
The militants fired on Apache attack helicopters which were conducting
reconnaissance in the area. The helicopters fired back, and the insurgents
retreated. When they tried to regroup, an Air Force F-15E jet dropped a
500-pound bomb on them, the military said. Six insurgents were killed and five
were wounded and captured, the statement said.
On Sunday morning, a roadside bomb destroyed one of several oil tanker trucks
driving on a main road in south Baghdad, sending a fire ball up over the area
and killing the two men inside, police Capt. Ibrahim Abdul-Ridha said. Four
civilian passers-by were wounded.
Three separate drive-by shootings in the capital killed two construction
workers and wounded three; seriously wounded a shopkeeper in the Dora district;
and hit a car carrying Cabinet adviser Ghalib Abdul Mahdi to work, wounding him
and killing his driver, police said.
Officials also evacuated a primary school in western Baghdad on Sunday, a
school day in Iraq, to defuse a bomb that was discovered by guards there, police
Capt. Talib Thamir said.
In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed a farmer on his
tractor and seriously wounded two other civilians, said police Capt. Laith
Mohammed.
On Saturday night, the corpses of three handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqis
were found in Baghdad, and police said an Iraqi soldier and the brother of a
policeman were gunned down.
Also Saturday night, a U.S. jet dropped a bomb north of Ramadi, 70 miles west
of Baghdad, killing three insurgents who were planting a roadside bomb, the
military said.
A new Pentagon report estimates that 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or
wounded by insurgents since Jan. 1, 2004. In the most recent period, from Aug.
29 to Sept. 16, there were an estimated 64 Iraqi casualties each day, the report
said. A recent Associated Press count found that at least 3,870 Iraqis have died
in the last six months.
Last week, a U.S. military spokesman told The Associated Press that as many
as 30,000 Iraqis may have died during the war, which began with the U.S.
invasion in March 2003. But independent analysts say that figure could be much
higher, with estimates ranging from at least 30,000 to 100,000 or more.
At least 2,015 members of the U.S. military also have died since the start of
the Iraq war, according to an AP count, including three Army soldiers who were
killed on Saturday by a land mine and a roadside bomb in two separate attacks.
Also Saturday, a bomb hidden in a truck loaded with dates exploded in the
center of the Shiite farming village of Huweder, about 45 miles northeast of
Baghdad, killing 26 people and injuring at least 45.
The bomb exploded as villagers were heading to the mosque for prayers or
outdoors in the cool evening breeze to break the daylong fast for the holy month
of Ramadan.
Police Lt. Ahmed Abdul Wahab, who gave the casualty figure, said the number
of deaths could increase because several survivors were critically wounded. The
village is in a religiously mixed area plagued by suicide attacks, roadside
bombs and assaults on police checkpoints.
Shiite civilians are frequent targets of Sunni extremists, including the
country's most feared terror group, al-Qaida in Iraq, which considers members of
the majority religious community to be heretics and collaborators with U.S.-led
forces. Iraq's security services are staffed mainly by Shiites and Kurds.
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