Explosions and gunfire rocked the turbulent city of Fallujah for a second day Friday, after coordinated attacks in other Iraqi cities killed about 100 people less than a week before Iraq's new government takes power.
US tanks and armored vehicles maneuvered on the highway near the edges of Fallujah, firing in all directions, while armed men in an eastern suburb returned fire, witnesses said. Seven people died in two days of exchanges there, hospital officials said.
Hours later, a roadside bomb exploded in a residential neighborhood in Baghdad, killing one Iraqi policeman and wounding another, police said.
The attacks on security forces fit a pattern of violence that targeted several cities on Thursday, when insurgents set off car bombs and seized police stations in an offensive aimed at creating chaos just days before the handover of power to a new Iraqi government. US and Iraqi forces regained control in heavy fighting, but the day's violence killed about 100 people, most of them Iraqi civilians.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network claimed responsibility for the attacks Thursday. A large number were killed in simultaneous car bombings in the northern city of Mosul, but some also died as US troops battled the guerrillas. Three US soldiers were among the dead. At least 320 people were wounded, including 12 Americans.
As the situation worsened, Iraq's interim vice president warned that a drastic deterioration in the country's security could result in the implementation of emergency laws or martial rule -- however undesirable such measures may be.
"Announcing emergency laws or martial law depends on the nature of the situation. In normal situations, there is clearly no need for that [step]," Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite and member of the Islamic Dawa Party, told reporters in an interview late Thursday.
"But in cases of excess challenges, emergency laws have their place," he said, adding that any such laws would fall within a "democratic framework that respects the rights of Iraqis."
In Mosul, residents said the city was tense yesterday, with a marked increase in the number of police on the streets. Fewer people ventured out to markets for fear of more attacks.
Elsewhere, three mortar shells exploded early yesterday near a pipeline damaged last week by sabotage, police Captain Mushtaq Talib said. The latest explosion caused no damage, Talib said.
Iraq's new leaders have recently begun to suggest the possibility of at least partial martial rule in some hotspots around the country as a way of stemming the tide of violence. It is unclear, however, whether US officials would go along with the idea. The UN Security Council resolution approved this month gives the US a primary security role in Iraq even after the transfer of sovereignty Wednesday.
US and Iraqi forces regained control in heavy fighting and American forces set up checkpoints around Iraq to intercept weapons, guerrillas and bombs.
They fear that al-Zarqawi, the militant who claimed responsibility for the offensive, plans a string of car bombings in Baghdad, said Colonel Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade.
"There is clearly a transnational threat, as represented by al-Zarqawi, and that threats appears -- based on what we've seen in Fallujah and Mosul today -- to want to bring the attack to Baghdad," Formica said Thursday.
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