[A-List] Iraq: Insurgents, Militia Launch Attacks Across Country

[Rick Rozoff <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>]

1) Fighting Throughout Iraq: Civilians And US Soldier
Killed, Italian Troops Wounded, Dutch And British
Forces Rocketed, Nasiriyah Headquarters Abandoned
2) Insurgents, Militia Launch Attacks Across Iraq; US
Troops Attacked In Capital
3) 28 Iraqi Civilians Wounded In Firefights Between
Italian Troops, Insurgents
4) Italian Troops Come Under Fresh Attacks
5) US Tanks Enter Shrine City Of Karbala, Met By
Hundreds Of Enraged Protesters
6) American Troops Take Over Base After Spanish
Departure
7) Insurgents Target Those Cooperating With US Forces
8) Loud Explosion Heard In Baghdad, Rocket Lands In US
Headquarters
9) Child Victims Of War Agency: Iraqis Worse Off In US
Hands; Warning On Depleted Uranium
10) Iran Strongly Condemns Desecration Of Iraqi Holy
Sites, Warns Of Consequences




1)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040516/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_16

Associated Press
May 16, 2004


U.S. Soldier Killed by Iraq Roadside Bomb 
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen killed three Iraqi women
working for the U.S.-led coalition Sunday, while
fighters in the southern stronghold of a radical
cleric staged hit-and-run attacks on Italian troops
and other coalition targets. A U.S. soldier died in a
bomb blast. 

Two Iraqi fighters were killed and 20 were wounded in
battles in Nasiriyah, mostly at two bridges crossing
the Euphrates River, residents said. 

Six Italian soldiers were slightly wounded in
Nasiriyah, said Maj. Antonio Sottile, spokesman for
Italian troops in Iraq. Militiamen were shooting from
a civilian hospital, but Italian troops did not fire
toward the facility, he said. The Iraqi fighters were
using assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled
grenades. 

Italy's ANSA news agency said a convoy transporting
the Italian official in charge of Nasiriyah, Barbara
Contini, came under attack as it neared the
headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Contini was not injured, though two Carabinieri
paramilitary police were hurt. 

All but two civilian staffers of the coalition were
evacuated from their Nasiriyah headquarters to a
military base because of attacks by fighters loyal to
Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric who launched an
uprising last month and faces an arrest warrant in the
murder of a rival moderate cleric last year. Fighting
began Friday. 

On Nov. 12, a suicide truck bomb in Nasiriyah killed
19 Italians. The city also was the scene of heavy
fighting in the early days of the U.S.-led invasion.
Eleven American soldiers were killed and seven —
including Pfc. Jessica Lynch — were captured when the
507th Maintenance Company was ambushed in Nasiriyah on
March 23, 2003. 

In Basra, assailants fired a mortar shell that landed
on a house near a British military base, killing four
Iraqi civilians, including 2-year-old twin girls,
witnesses said. Four people were wounded. All the
victims were related. 

Gunmen fired on a minibus and detonated explosives in
Baghdad on Sunday, killing two Iraqi women and the
driver and injuring another woman. Lt. Ali Omran of
Dora police station said the women were working for
the Americans, but he did not specify their jobs. 

Early Sunday, a female Iraqi translator working with
U.S. troops was killed and another was critically
injured when gunmen broke into their houses in
Mahmoudiyah, said Dawood al-Taee, director of the
city's hospital. 

The civilian killings appeared to be part of a rebel
strategy to deter cooperation between Iraqis and the
coalition that plans to hand over sovereignty on June
30. 

The U.S. soldier was killed Saturday night when a bomb
exploded beside a vehicle in Baghdad, the Army said
Sunday. An American also was wounded. 

The death brought to 776 the number of U.S. service
members who have died since the beginning of military
operations in Iraq last year. Of those, 566 died as a
result of hostile action and 210 died of non-hostile
causes. 

In central Baghdad, several explosions were heard near
the U.S.-controlled green zone. It was unclear what
caused the blasts, but smoke could be seen rising from
the west side of the Tigris River. 

The coalition is trying to disband al-Sadr's army and
sideline its radical leadership before handing power
to a new Iraqi government. American forces and al-Sadr
fighters fought heavy battles in recent days in the
southern holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. 

On Sunday, American tanks drove through the center of
Karbala and exchanged gunfire with insurgents. The
tanks also opened fire to break up an anti-American
demonstration, but there were no casualties. 

Coalition forces guarding large quantities of captured
arms and explosives at Karbala's Mukhaiyam mosque came
under mortar fire three times overnight, said Lt. Col.
Robert Strzelecki, spokesman for the Polish-led
multinational force in south-central Iraq. There were
no casualties. 

Earlier in the week, coalition troops drove out
insurgents who were using the mosque as a base of
operations. 

Apparent gunfire slightly damaged one of Shia Islam's
holiest shrines in Najaf on Friday, prompting calls
for revenge against the Americans and even suicide
attacks against the coalition. 

The U.S. military has said al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army was
probably responsible, but Iran's supreme leader on
Sunday accused the United States of damaging the
shrine through "shameless" and "foolish" actions. 

"Muslims can't tolerate the shameless incursion of
American forces into sacred places," Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei was quoted as saying by the official Islamic
Republic News Agency. 

Two U.S. tanks were stationed Sunday in a main square
in Najaf, while militiamen held positions in the
cemetery and other areas. 

Several mosque imams from Fallujah, a Sunni stronghold
west of Baghdad that was the site of heavy fighting
last month, visited al-Sadr in Najaf to show
solidarity. The siege of Fallujah by U.S. Marines
ended when the coalition allowed an Iraqi force led by
former officers in Saddam Hussein's army to take over
security in the city. 

An explosion in the southern city of Samawah killed at
least one Iraqi security force member, and there also
was shooting between Iraqi security forces and al-Sadr
supporters, Japan's Kyodo News reported. 

Two mortar shells were fired at Dutch soldiers
guarding the provincial governor's building in
Samawah, Kyodo said. Japanese soldiers had virtually
confined themselves to their base on the southern
outskirts of the city because of deteriorating
security. 

Mohammed Rahim, an ambulance driver in southern
Amarah, said hospital officials picked up 21 bodies
from a British base after authorities asked that
ambulances recover al-Sadr fighters slain Friday.
British troops said they would hand over another seven
bodies, Rahim said. 

Also Sunday, the Arab news network Al-Jazeera
broadcast video of two Russians who were taken hostage
May 10 in Iraq and read a statement from a group
demanding that foreign troops withdraw. Moscow
strongly opposed the war and does not have any troops
in Iraq. 

In London, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said Sunday
the government is still considering the dispatch of
more troops to Iraq, but no decision has been made.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said this month that Britain
was discussing with the United States the possibility
of sending more troops to different areas of Iraq
following the withdrawal of Spanish, Honduran and
Dominican troops. 

Britain has 7,500 troops in southern Iraq. 

U.S. troops have taken over operations at the Spanish
military base in south-central Iraq as Spanish troops
continue their withdrawal, Spain's Defense Ministry
said Sunday. The transfer ceremony was made in
Diwaniyah, 100 miles south of Baghdad. 

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose
Socialist party won March 14 general elections,
ordered the troops home, saying he saw no sign that
his terms for keeping them there beyond June 30 would
be met. Those conditions were that the United Nations
assume military and political control of the
occupation. 
------------------------------------------------------
2)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2004/05/16/insurgents_militia_launch_attacks_across_iraq/


Boston Globe
May 16, 2004


Insurgents, militia launch attacks across Iraq
Coalition kills scores; fighting flares in Baghdad
By Vivienne Walt, Globe Correspondent 


-Rather than losing steam after a month of fighting,
Sadr's rebellion appears to have gathered momentum,
however. It recent days, fighting has leaped from city
to city across a swath of southern Iraq, reaching
almost to the Kuwait border.


BAGHDAD - Shi'ite militia fighters and insurgents
launched attacks against coalition forces across much
of Iraq yesterday, resulting in scores of Iraqi
deaths.

Just over six weeks until the United States is
scheduled to transfer power to an Iraqi government,
Baghdad itself was drawn further into the maw of the
conflict, as American soldiers killed at least 21
Iraqis in 10 separate clashes in the capital.

At least 14 fighters were killed early yesterday in
northeast Baghdad's Sadr City, when Shi'ite militiamen
used mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and gunfire
against American soldiers, according to US military
officials. Just past noon, two thunderous explosions
shook central Baghdad, when insurgents fired a mortar
round into the so-called "Green Zone," the US-led
coalition's headquarters.

In west Baghdad, insurgents launched rocket-propelled
grenades at American soldiers, who shot back, killing
seven Iraqis.

Insurgents attacked an Iraqi military recruiting
station in the northern city of Mosul, killing four
civilians, according to US officials. The US military
also announced the deaths of five soldiers: three from
rebel attacks Friday, one in a vehicle accident, and
one from what was described as natural causes.

The coalition's heaviest fight continued against the
Shi'ite militia loyal to the firebrand cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr, scores of whom were killed yesterday across
an area stretching hundreds of miles. Despite the
quickly rising death toll of Iraqi fighters, US
officials said they were nonetheless tempering their
military strikes against Sadr's forces, for fear of
igniting even more intense violence if they attempt to
obliterate his Mahdi Army.

"We certainly understand that we've got the military
force to end this by force of arms at any time,"
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of US
operations in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad. "But in
the long run that does not solve the problem, and it
may create 10 new problem sets that we are trying to
avoid."

Rather than losing steam after a month of fighting,
Sadr's rebellion appears to have gathered momentum,
however. It recent days, fighting has leaped from city
to city across a swath of southern Iraq, reaching
almost to the Kuwait border.

The accelerating violence comes at a critical time for
US officials, who are scrambling to stitch together a
sovereign Iraqi government to which to cede power on
June 30.
....
US officials have said they intend to maintain a force
of about 130,000 troops even after the American
occupation ends. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
told leaders at the World Economic Forum in Jordan
yesterday that he would seek the UN Security Council's
sanction for that force.

US officials appealed yesterday to Iraqis to find
mediators to persuade Sadr to disarm his militia, who
are thought to number about 5,000. Members of Iraq's
Governing Council said last week that they had been
unable to meet directly with Sadr, who has been holed
up in Najaf.

The major sticking point has been an outstanding
murder charge against Sadr in the killing of a rival
cleric. US officials have insisted that Sadr submit to
an Iraqi court to stand trial and have ruled out
proposals from some Iraqi politicians that Sadr's
indictment be postponed or waived in return for him
disbanding his militia.

"Our goal has been clear for some time," the
coalition's spokesman Daniel Senor, told reporters in
Baghdad. "Moqtada al-Sadr must face justice. He must
disarm his militia. Period. End of issue."

That possibility seemed remote yesterday, however.

In the southern city of Nasiriyah, Shi'ite militia
battled Italian soldiers for eight hours before dawn.
British soldiers killed 16 fighters near Amara when
their convoy was ambushed on a road outside the city.
In the holy Shi'ite city of Karbala, about 60 miles
south of Baghdad, men armed with rocket-propelled
grenade launchers and Kalashnikov rifles paced the
streets, triggering skirmishes with American forces.

Sadr's fighters in Karbala, who have commandeered
police stations in the city in recent days, said they
intended to kill officers they captured.

"This is the last policeman we will free," Sheik Hamza
Tai, a Sadr loyalist, told reporters in Karbala, after
releasing a hostage captured during a battle on
Friday. "Any new policemen we capture will be executed
for collaborating with the occupiers."

Unlike the violence in early April, which was centered
in Fallujah and Najaf, the current fighting
encompasses a much larger area.

Sadr officials in the heavily Shi'ite city of Basra,
near the Kuwait border, said that 20 people
volunteered yesterday to be suicide bombers. They were
answering a call at Friday prayers by a sheik aligned
with Sadr. 
------------------------------------------------------
3)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/679277.cms


Agence France-Presse
May 16, 2004

28 wounded in Iraq clashes

 
NASIRIYAH - Twenty-eight Iraqi civilians were wounded
on Sunday as Shiite militiamen battled Italian troops
in the southern city of Nasiriyah , officials and
medical sources said. 

"Twenty people were wounded when a shell hit the Haraj
market in the city centre," said Adnan Sharifi, deputy
governor of the Shiite city about 275 km south of
Baghdad . 

Medics at the city's hospital told said that eight
other people were later brought in with injuries. 

Lieutenant Colonel Giuseppe Perrone, an Italian
military spokesman, described the situation in
Nasiriyah as "very tense" and added that the coalition
headquarters continued to come under fire from a
nearby hospital where militiamen are holed up. 

The Italians and the militiamen of radical cleric
Moqtada Sadr continued to exchange fire in the
deserted city. 
------------------------------------------------------
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/16/content_1472603.htm

Xinhua News Agency (China)
May 16, 2004

Italians come under fresh attacks in Iraq 
 
ROME - Italian forces in Iraq came under fresh attacks
on Sunday from militiamen of rebel cleric Moqtada al
Sadr who has declared a "holy war" in the southern
Iraqi city of Nassiriya, Italian military sources
reported in Rome. 

Sadr's militiamen began directing intense kalashnikov
and rocket fire on the offices of the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) after entering an adjacent
hospital. 

The situation at the CPA - defended by 40 private
Filipino security guards as well as Italian troops -
was described as "extremely complex." 

The Italians removed barricades around a former
Carabinieri base hit on November 12 by a suicide truck
attack that killed 19 Italians. 

Meanwhile, an Italian soldier was slightly wounded on
Sunday ina street clash. 

One Italian Carabiniere was slightly wounded early
Saturday while traveling to reinforce the CPA forces. 

Sadr is wanted by the US-led coalition in connection
with the murder of a rival cleric. 

Almost 3,000 Italian troops are serving in Iraq,
mainly as partof a British-led multinational
stabilisation force in the south of the country. 
------------------------------------------------------
5)
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=34713

Novinite (Bulgaria)
May 16, 2004


US Tanks Enter Karbala


US tanks raided the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Karbala,
approaching the sacred shrines of Imam Abbas and Imam
Hussein, AFP reported. 

"Long live Sadr, the Americans are an army of
infidels," hundreds of people preparing for an anti-US
demonstration shouted made hysteric by the appearance
of some 15 tanks.

The death count in Iraq over the last 24 hours was
high for insurgents: 21 in the Baghdad area, 16 near
Amarah, and four in Karbala, where coalition troops
and the Mehdi militia have been fighting for the last
four days, coalition officials said Saturday.

A nearly 500-strong Bulgarian stabilization force
patrols Iraq's second holiest Shiite city of Karbala,
80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, as part of
a multinational force under Polish command.
------------------------------------------------------
6)
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=104406810&p=yx44x75y6

Ireland Online
May 16, 2004

US takes over Spanish base in Iraq


US troops have taken over operations at the Spanish
military base in south-central Iraq as Spanish troops
continue with their withdrawal from the country, the
Defence Ministry in Madrid said today.

The transfer ceremony was made in Diwaniyah, 100 miles
south of Baghdad.

At the ceremony, Spanish General Jose Manuel Munoz
thanked Spain’s coalition partners and the population
of Diwaniyah for their affection, the Defence Ministry
said.

The Spanish flag will fly over the base until the
departure of the last convoy, with Gen Munoz remaining
its commander until then, the Ministry added.

Some 1,000 logistic experts and other troops are still
in Diwaniyah to ship material home, and are expected
to leave Iraq by May 27.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose
Socialist party won general elections in March,
ordered the troops home saying he saw no sign that his
terms for keeping them there beyond June 30 would be
met.

Those conditions were that the United Nations assume
military and political control of the occupation.

Some 1,300 troops were sent to Iraq by former Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar to support the US-led
occupation.
------------------------------------------------------
7)
http://www.whnt19.com/Global/story.asp?S=1870423

Associated Press
May 16, 2004

Insurgents target those who cooperate with the U-S in
Iraq 
 

Baghdad - Iraqis who cooperate with the U-S and its
allies have been targeted this weekend.

Gunmen fired on a minibus in Baghdad today, killing
two Iraqi women who were working for the coalition.

And early this morning, a hospital official says a
female Iraqi translator working with U-S troops was
killed and another was critically injured, when gunmen
broke into their houses in Mahmoudiyah, just south of
the capital.

Such killings appear to be part of a rebel strategy to
discourage cooperation between Iraqis and the
coalition as the June 30th date for a handover of
sovereignty draws nearer.

Meanwhile, a loud explosion was heard today near the
fortified 'green zone' that serves as coalition
headquarters. But sirens that warn of an attack in the
zone didn't go off.
------------------------------------------------------
8)
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/may2004-daily/16-05-2004/main/update.shtml#06

Jang (Pakistan)
May 16, 2004

Loud explosion heard in Baghdad



BAGHDAD: A loud explosion was heard in Baghdad early
on Sunday followed by sporadic gunfire. The source of
the blast at about 8:10 am (0410 GMT) could not be
immediately located and was being checked by the US
military.

The sound of blasts continue to be heard regularly
across Baghdad, with some of them controlled
explosions carried out by the US-led coalition.

A rocket landed in the sprawling headquarters of the
US-led coalition on Saturday slightly wounding one
soldier and a civilian. 
------------------------------------------------------
9)
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1526194,00.html

News 24, 2004 (South Africa)
May 16, 2004

Iraqis 'worse off' in US hands


London - Iraqi children are living in conditions worse
than those endured under Saddam Hussein's regime and
US sanctions, a children's rights organisation said on
Wednesday, warning that they were experiencing a
"humanitarian catastrophe". 

"Every child has some level of psychological trauma,"
said Jo Baker, director of the London-based Child
Victims of War. 

"I have been to Iraq under Saddam and sanctions - most
people know how bad things were - but what has
happened this year has plunged Iraq into a plight
which is actually far, far worse." 

"If it is worse than sanctions and Saddam, then we are
really talking about a humanitarian catastrophe,"
Baker said. 

The organisation voiced worry over children detained
by the US-led coalition in Iraq, in light of
revelations of torture in the US and British prisons
there. 

It also warned that the US-led coalition's use of
weapons containing depleted uranium was producing
horrible birth defects and high cancer rates in Iraq. 

Leukemia and other cancers have gone up in Iraq since
the war, as have births of children with deformities,
especially shrunken limbs and missing eyes, and still
births, it said. 

"We have discovered not one single batch of medicines
has arrived in any hospital since occupation except
those getting through carried by NGOs
(non-governmental organisations)," Baker added. 

Edited by Tricia Shannon
------------------------------------------------------
10)
http://www.payvand.com/news/04/may/1103.html

Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran)
May 16, 2004


Iran slams sacrilege of holy sites in Iraq, warns of
consequences  


Tehran - Iran on Sunday strongly condemned US forces
for entering the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Najaf and
warned the United States of the `consequences` of
breaching the sanctity of holy places. 
"The sacrilege of holy sites is not acceptable at
all," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told
reporters in a weekly news briefing here. 

"The American government naturally has to bear the
consequences of such actions," he added. 

The United States has sent troops as well as tanks
into the two cities, sparking bloody clashes with
forces loyal to Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which
have taken their toll also at the holy quarters. 

Friday exchange of gunfire in Najaf damaged the golden
dome of the holy shrine of Imam Ali (AS). 

"American actions all across Iraq are not acceptable,
but there is added sensitivity when this comes to
Najaf and Karbala because of the presence of holy
quarters and houses of eminent sources of religious
reference," Asefi said. 

The United States is already in hot water over
revelations about widespread mistreatment and torture
of Iraqi prisoners by US forces. 

According to those revelations, prisoners were kept
naked, stacked on top of each other, compelled to wear
hoods over their heads, forced to engage in sex acts,
struck by American jailers, and photographed in
humiliating poses. 

A recent poll released in the United States showed 80
percent of Iraqis mistrust the US-led coalition. 

The gruesome images, picturing US troops obscenely
taunting Iraqi prisoners were first released by CBS
news network in its `60 Minutes II` program. 

US President George W. Bush has called the scandal a
taint on `US honor and dignity`, while stressing that
it would not deter the United States from its mission
to establish `democracy` in Iraq. 

Asefi said, "Americans entered Iraq with a promise (to
establish) democracy and hold free elections, but the
outcome of their action has become torturing the Iraqi
people and sabotaging (efforts) to implement Iraqi
people`s demands. 

"The true nature of America has been unveiled now, but
nobody knows why the Americans insist on their
increasing mistakes. 

"Americans` actions in Iraq do not comply with their
slogans, recent events and attack on holy sites in
Najaf and Karbala being one example," the Iranian
Foreign Ministry spokesman said. 

Asefi ruled out Tehran`s mediation in the bloody
stand-off, stressing that `it is impossible to mediate
between the occupiers and the people whose country has
been occupied; such a mediation is basically wrong`. 

The official however said that the Islamic Republic
was keeping up its contact with various ethnic groups
in Iraq, especially the Kurds, Shi`ite and Sunni
Muslims, and `trying to reduce differences` them. 

"This is our duty and it cannot be compared to
mediation between the Iraqi people and the occupiers,"
he said. 

Asefi stressed that Tehran`s efforts to resolve
differences among Iraqi groups would continue. 




 



	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price.
http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/