Iraqi insurgents detonated a car bomb and then hammered a military headquarters in the city of Samarra with a massive mortar barrage on Thursday, leveling the building and killing five US soldiers and one Iraqi guardsman, the US military said.
American troops -- backed by attack helicopters -- then fanned out through the city to hunt down the attackers in clashes that lasted into late Thursday afternoon. Tanks deployed in the streets. Smoke rose above a local mosque.
The violence also killed three civilians, medical officials said. As many as 44 people were wounded, including 20 US soldiers and four Iraqi guardsmen, the military and hospital officials said.
PHOTO: EPA
About 10:30am Thursday, Iraqi insurgents lashed out at US forces in Samarra, a hotbed of anti-coalition resistance 95km north of Baghdad, said Major Neal O'Brien, the spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division.
One witness, Khalid Salih, said the gate of the headquarters building shared by US forces and their Iraqi National Guard allies was open when a sport utility vehicle with a car bomb drove in.
``I saw a GMC entering into the base and immediately exploding,'' he said.
Insurgents then launched 38 mortars at the headquarters, destroying the building, O'Brien said. Some of the rounds landed in surrounding residential neighborhoods.
About 25 minutes after the mortar attack -- once radar determined where it had originated -- US soldiers responded with four mortar rounds of their own.
American troops moved through the streets to flush out the insurgents, and four fighters shot at the soldiers before taking refuge in a building, O'Brien said. US helicopters swooped in and attacked with Hellfire missiles, killing the four attackers.
Elsewhere, four large explosions were heard at an Iraqi base in the town of Mishahda, 40km north of Baghdad. Volleys of gunfire broke out immediately afterward. US military officials had no immediate comment.
Meanwhile, an explosion killed former senior Baath party official, Ali Abbas Hassan, as he left his textile factory in Baghdad, said police Lt. Anmar Yassin. Authorities didn't know the cause of the explosion.
Elsewhere, explosions were heard in Fallujah, the Sunni city considered to be a safe haven for militants seeking to attack US and Iraqi forces. Several airstrikes have been launched at suspected safehouses believed linked to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Early yesterday, the pan-Arab television network al Jazeera broadcast a video showing Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group threatening to execute two Bulgarian hostages if the US military did not release all Iraqi detainees within 24 hours.
The video showed the two unidentified Bulgarians sitting with their hands cuffed, flanked by three masked, armed men. The Foreign Ministry in Sofia later identified them as Ivaylo Kepov and Georgi Lazov, who were in Iraq working as truck drivers for a private company.
The group had previously claimed responsibility for the beheading of US businessman Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il.
An Iraqi interpreter working with US forces was also taken hostage in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a police officer said yesterday.
Omar Abdel Jabbar was forced into a car at gun point after armed men came to his house in the town, 100km west of Baghdad, at about 11 pm on Thursday, said the officer on condition of anonymity.
"I saw four masked men force him into their car, which was a clear blue Opel," he said.
Numerous Iraqis working for the US military or the now dissolved occupation administration have been taken hostage in Iraq by those who regard them as collaborators.
On Thursday, police said that an Iraqi man who owns a laundry and a restaurant on a US military base in the northern city of Mosul was found with his hands cut off and an eye gouged out after being taken hostage.
Ramadi is part of the so-called Sunni Muslim triangle, a stronghold of anti-US insurgents aggrieved by the ouster of former president Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese