Six people died in a bomb explosion west of Baghdad and an Iraqi journalist was shot dead as the ongoing violence prompted US President George W. Bush to vow his forces would not be intimidated by attacks on civilians.
Tuesday's car bomb exploded near a police station in Fallujah, 50km west of Baghdad, a correspondent at the scene reported.
At least six severely charred and mutilated bodies, including those of schoolchildren, lay on the ground after a pickup truck blew up about 150m from the police station.
PHOTO: AFP
Another eight people were wounded, according to hospital sources.
In the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi journalist was fatally shot in his office by unknown assailants.
Ahmed Shawkat, who worked for a local newspaper, was found in his office with gunshot wounds to the shoulder, chest, and stomach, a friend, Adnan Hatem al-Mashehadani, said. He later died in a local hospital.
Fresh violence on Tuesday in the capital also claimed the life of a US soldier and Baghdad's deputy mayor, according to coalition officials.
Meanwhile, police cleared the rubble after Monday's synchronized suicide car bombings in Baghdad which devastated the International Committee of the Red Cross office and four police stations.
It marked the bloodiest attack in the city since it was seized by US troops from Saddam Hussein in April, and marred the traditionally peaceful and solemn Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
It also delivered a defiant message as the killers targeted a humanitarian agency, dedicated to Iraq's reconstruction, and the police, considered the backbone of US plans to restore law and order.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell appealed personally to the Red Cross not to pull its foreign staff out of Iraq, as Bush refused to back down on US-led efforts to rebuild the country.
Powell told Red Cross head Jakob Kellenberger and UN chief Kofi Annan that the US was committed to providing the highest level of security it could in Iraq, and stressed Washington's hope that the Red Cross and other organizations would not withdraw, spokesman Richard Boucher said.
"The secretary said he understood the need to protect employees and take into account the security situation, but also said we would encourage people to stay there and do the important work that they have been doing," he said.
Earlier, the Red Cross launched consultations at its Geneva headquarters about the future of its operations in Iraq. The group however said it had not made a decision on whether to pull its foreign staff out of Baghdad after Monday's bombing.
Meanwhile, in a rare White House news conference, Bush said the US would not be intimidated by attacks on civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan, where another US-led coalition smashed the Taliban regime in late 2001.
"Desperate attacks on innocent civilians will not intimidate us," Bush said.
"We're now working with many nations to make sure Afghanistan and Iraq are never again a source of terror and danger for the rest of the world.
"Our coalition is growing in numbers and growing in strength. Our purpose is clear and certain.
"Iraq and Afghanistan will be stable, independent nations and their people will live in freedom."
Bush also said he believed former members of Iraq's ruling Baath party and foreign terrorists were behind the recent wave of bombings.
"I would assume that they are either, or and probably both Baathists and foreign terrorists," he said.
More than 100 US soldiers have died in combat in Iraq since May 1, when Bush landed triumphantly on a US aircraft carrier in a military flight suit and declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq.
Asked Tuesday whether his declaration was premature he said: "I think you ought to look at my speech. I said Iraq's a dangerous place, got hard work to do, there's still more to be done.
"And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I was there to thank the troops."
According to a private study, an estimated 13,000 Iraqis, including as many as 4,300 non-combatants, were killed during the major combat phase of the war in Iraq.
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