| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| 3 dead in Baquba car boom |
| 2004-07-04 |
| US-backed Iraqi security forces foiled an attempted car bombing Sunday outside their headquarters in a city northeast of Baghdad after they opened fire on a man who threatened to blow up his vehicle, according to local officials. Two bystanders and the attacker were killed. Iraqi officials in the city of Baqouba said Sunday morning that a man driving a car rigged with explosives tried to attack the National Guard building there. According to The AP, the attacker got out of the car and the Iraqi troops opened fire, killing the man and setting off the explosives in the car, police chief Waleed al-Azawi, said. Hospital officials reported that two bystanders were killed in the blast. Another car bombing targeted a passing U.S. convoy west of Baghdad around 8:30 a.m. causing no injuries, said Maj. Phil Smith of the 1st Cavalry Division. In Baghdad, a blast shook the home of an Education Ministry employee. Also on Sunday, an Iraqi police official announced that U.S. and Iraqi forces have detained six members of a group suspected of carrying out a string of assassinations in the country’s northern region. The men were reportedly members of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish group believed to be linked to al-Qaeda, said Col. Sarhat Qader of the Iraqi police. Elsewhere, American troops shot dead two fighters and wounded a third when they staged separate attacks on an army patrol and a police station in northern Iraq, the military said. Five fighters attacked a military patrol in the town of Baiji at about 1:15 pm (0915 GMT) on Friday with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, according to a US statement released overnight Saturday. "The patrol returned fire, killing one anti-Iraqi fighter (AIF) and wounding another," it said. "The remaining three AIF fled." Just over three hours later, a band of 10 to 15 fighters launched an assault on US soldiers and Iraqi police at a police station in Baiji, 180 kilometres north of Baghdad. "The soldiers returned fire, killing one AIF firing from the rooftop of a nearby building," the military said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |