Los Angeles Times
October 16, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq —
Car bombs killed five U.S. troops in Iraq, the U.S. military said Saturday,
the latest in a string of such attacks at the start of the Islamic holy month of
Ramadan. Blasts also targeted five churches in the Iraqi capital.
The
two car bombs went off Friday, the military said. One, carried out by a suicide
bomber driving an explosive-laden vehicle, targeted a U.S. patrol near the town
of Qaim, an insurgent hotspot near the border with Syria, killing four U.S.
troops, according to Lt. Col. Chris Woodbridge, commander of the 1st
Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment.
The other blast went off in the
northern city of Mosul, 225 miles north of Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier
assigned to Task Force Olympia, the military said.
U.S. commanders
have warned that insurgents may increase violence during Ramadan -- just as
there was a surge in attacks last year with the start of the month of fasting.
In recent days, U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched sweeps around several
cities in an attempt to suppress guerrillas ahead of Ramadan. Most Iraqis began
observing the sunrise-to-sunset fast on Friday, though some Shiites began
today.
The U.S. military loosened a cordon around the Sunni insurgent
stronghold of Fallouja after several days of intense clashes with rebels there,
residents said. The surge in violence in Fallouja came as negotiations with
city leaders aimed a deal to re-establish government control broke down.
A vehicle bomb reported Friday by the U.S. military blasted near a police
station in southwest Baghdad, killing 10 civilians -- including a family of four
who were driving by at the time of the blast. Iraqi hospital officials said 14
people were wounded.
In Baghdad today, bombs rang out outside five
churches in quick succession over an hour and half starting at 4:00 a.m., the
Iraqi Interior Ministry said. There were no injuries, but all the churches had
windows blown out, said ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman.
"It is a criminal act to make Iraq unstable and to create religious
difficulties," Rev. Zaya Yousef of St. George's Church said. "But this will
not happen because we all live together like brothers in this country through
sadness and happiness."
Iraq's community of 750,000 Christians has
grown increasingly anxious at the rise of Islamic fundamentalism since the
ouster of Saddam Hussein last year. Hundreds have fled to neighboring Jordan
and Syria.
In August, coordinated attacks hit four churches in Baghdad
and one in Mosul, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens more in the
first significant strike against Iraq's minority Christians since the U.S.
invasion began last year.
In other Baghdad violence, a mortar round
exploded in the garden of the Ibn al-Betar hospital, killing one person.
Officials said the blast at the hospital could have been far worse -- The
building was under renovation at the time and there were no patients there.
Another mortar round hit the parking lot of al-Mansour Hotel, where some
foreign journalists and diplomats stay. There were no reports of casualties
there, the Interior Ministry said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said
the deadline for Shiite militiamen to turn in their weapons in the Baghdad
district of Sadr City was extended to Sunday. Friday had been the deadline for
militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr to exchange guns for cash under
a deal to end weeks of fighting with U.S. troops there.
Once the
handover is complete, the U.S. military will verify that no major weapons
caches remain and Iraqi forces will assume responsibility for security in Sadr
City. The Americans hope the deal will enable them to focus on the more
dangerous Sunni Muslim insurgency.
In Fallouja, the center of the Sunni
insurgency, residents said the Americans relaxed a cordon they threw up around
the city after stepped up air and ground attacks this week against insurgents,
including those loyal to terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
U.S.
troops were allowing residents to leave the city through the northern exit and
people were walking freely about the streets Saturday, residents said.
U.S. jets and artillery had pounded targets in the southern and eastern part of
Fallouja around sundown Friday as residents were taking the traditional meal
that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan.
The attacks began Thursday
after peace talks between the Iraqi officials and city leaders broke down over
the government's demand that they hand over al-Zarqawi, believed responsible for
suicide bombings and beheading foreign hostages.
Khaled al-Jumeili, an
Islamic cleric who served as the city's top negotiator in the talks, was
arrested as he left a mosque after Friday prayers in a village about 10 miles
south of Fallouja, witnesses said. There was no confirmation from U.S.
authorities.
Fallouja fell under control of radical clerics and their
armed mujahedeen fighters after the Marines lifted their three-week siege of the
city in April.
On Friday, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni
group with ties to some insurgents, called upon political parties to withdraw
from the government to protest bloodshed in Fallouja, Samarra and other
cities.
In a separate statement read Friday in Sunni mosques in Baghdad
and elsewhere, Fallouja clerics threatened a civil disobedience campaign across
the country if the Americans try to overrun the city.
The clerics said
if civil disobedience were not enough to stop a U.S. assault, they would
proclaim a jihad, or holy war, against all U.S. and multinational forces "as
well as those collaborating with them."
They insisted that the
Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was not in Fallouja, claiming his alleged presence "is
a lie just like the weapons of mass destruction lie."
"Al-Zarqawi has
become the pretext for flattening civilians houses and killing innocent
civilians," the statement said.
Al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group
claimed responsibility for Thursday's twin bombings inside Baghdad's heavily
guarded Green Zone -- home to U.S. officials and the Iraqi leadership -- which
killed six people, including three American civilians, and wounded 27 others,
mostly Iraqis. A fourth American was missing and presumed dead.
Also
Saturday, a member of the Turkoman Front political group was assassinated in
northern Iraq while driving his children to school, police said. Gunmen opened
fire on the car of politician Ghafour Abu Bakr, killing him and slightly
injuring his two children, Col. Burhan Taha said. The four assailants then
pushed the children out and stole the car, he said.