At least 12 people were killed Sunday as US troops battled insurgents who fired a salvo of mortars into Iraq's government compound, orchestrated two failed car bombings and assassinated a security official.
Militants loyal to alleged Al-Qaeda operative and Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, claimed attacks on the heavily-fortified Green Zone housing the government and the US embassy and on the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
The battles raged hours after US-led troops across the country commemorated the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, blamed on Al-Qaeda, which led to the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
At least 12 people were killed, including two children, and 41 wounded during intense fighting around Haifa Street, considered a bastion of Saddam Hussein loyalists, according to doctors at two local hospitals. Among the injured were three women and six children.
Mazen al-Tomaisi, a Palestinian working for Saudi and Al-Arabiya television died and two photographers wounded in a US helicopter attack during the clashes, media sources said.
The fighting erupted after a suspected car bomb exploded two hours before dawn in Haifa Street where insurgents and US troops clash regularly, a US military source said.
Heavy machine-gun and assault rifle fire reverberated across the street for three hours and a tank was mobilised to support US troops, home to an urban war terrain of high-rise apartment buildings, perfect for snipers.
As the sun rose at 6:30 am (0230 GMT), a car bomb struck the tank, wounding four people, a military spokeswoman said, but was unable to confirm if the casualties were American.
Witnesses saw an angry mob pelt the burning tank with stones and dance around the armoured vehicle as one man climbed on top, waving a black flag emblazoned with the name of Zarqawi's group Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War), while veiled women ululated.
A pair of US helicopters then swooped down over the neighborhood and fired missiles and heavy machine-gun fire into the mob, scattering at least five corpses across the ground.
The US military said the tank was destroyed from the air "to prevent looting and harm to the Iraqi people".
Simultaneously, two drivers were shot dead trying to ram cars rigged with explosives into the high-security Green Zone and the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, Iraqi and US sources said.
Iraqi national guardsmen opened fire on a vehicle as it sped towards a checkpoint outside the seat of the interim government and the US embassy, killing the driver, a national guard source said.
Another man was also killed trying to smash his car through the compound of the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad was killed, the US military said.
An Iraqi police colonel also died in a car bombing on his way to work, a ministry spokesman said.
US Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan said from late Saturday to early Sunday, over a dozen mortars and rockets had been fired into or around the Green Zone, unable to give any details on damage.
Insurgents frequently shell the heavily-fortified Green Zone with mortars.
"Dozens of mujahedeen missiles were launched against scattered targets, particularly in Baghdad and other Sunni provinces," said the internet statement signed by "the military branch of the Tawhid wal Jihad".
"They targeted the American headquarters and the traitor Iraqi government and some embassies of allied countries," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified.
Zarqawi, a fugitive Jordanian Islamist who has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head, has already claimed responsibility for a string of attacks in Iraq, including the beheading of foreign hostages.
The country kidnapping crisis grinded on as Italy's foreign minister said he was still hopeful that two Italian women hostages would be released, as a purported ultimatum by Al-Qaeda-linked kidnappers was about to expire.
There has been no word on the fate of two French journalists held hostage by extremists since August 20.
Israel kills 11 Palestinians in Gaza within 24 hours