- Title: IRAQ: SUICIDE BOMB KILLS AT LEAST 13 IN BAGHDAD.
- Date: 17th September 2004
- Summary: (U3) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (SEPTEMBER 17, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. GV: AMBULANCES AT SCENE (2 SHOTS) 0.11 2. GV/MV: IRAQI POLICE CAR DRIVING UP, IRAQI POLICEMAN GETTING OUT (2 SHOTS) 0.22 3. GV: U.S. SOLDIERS AT SCENE; U.S. MILITARY VEHICLES (2 SHOTS) 0.35 4. GV/GV/PAN: IRAQI POLICE AND U.S. TROOPS TELLING PEOPLE TO MOVE AWAY (2 SHOTS) 0.48
- Embargoed: 2nd October 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BAGHDAD, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVA3R8S4D32ALVJDLETH73QJXV32
- Story Text: Suicide bomb kills at least 13 in Baghdad.
A suicide car bomber killed at least 13 people in an
attack on a police checkpoint in Baghdad on Friday, after a
night of U.S. air strikes around rebel-held Falluja that
killed scores.
A government spokesman said the bomb had detonated
beside a line of police vehicles set up to seal off routes
to nearby Haifa Street, a guerrilla stronghold where U.S.
troops have been fighting insurgents.
A large crater was gouged into the road and several
police cars were ablaze, sending thick smoke into the sky.
The government spokesman said at least 13 people were dead
and the U.S. military said as many as 50 were wounded.
On Tuesday, a suicide car bomb attack on a Baghdad
police station killed 47 people in the deadliest single
attack in the capital in six months.
The U.S. military said an air strike on Thursday night
near Falluja, part of a push to quell insurgency and
lawlessness enough to hold a national election next
January, had killed around 60 foreign fighters loyal to the
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Washington says Zarqawi is allied to al Qaeda and is its
number one foe in Iraq, and has put a $25 million price
on his head. Early on Friday, U.S. warplanes destroyed a
compound in south central Falluja which the U.S. military
said was also used by Zarqawi's militants.
Iraq's Health Ministry said at least 45 civilians had
been killed in the air strikes. Reuters television images
showed bloodied bodies, including women and children, on
hospital beds.
More than 200 Iraqis have died over the past few days
alone in bombings and other violence.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said U.S.
diplomats and military commanders recognised the vote could
not go ahead nationwide under the current security
conditions, and that areas in rebel hands had to be brought
back under government control.
But he told the Washington Times, in an interview
published on Friday, that "we don't expect the security
situation as it exists now on the 16th of September to be
the security situation" on the day Iraqis vote.
Friday's violence in Baghdad began before dawn near
around the Haifa Street area, the latest focus of guerrilla
attacks in the capital.
The U.S. military said its troops had fired on a car
packed with explosives that was driving towards a
checkpoint, killing two men in the vehicle. Later, blasts
and gunfire echoed from Haifa Street as U.S. troops moved
in.
In fighting west of Baghdad on Thursday, three U.S.
marines were killed in action in separate incidents, the
American military said. At least 777 U.S. military
personnel have died in action in Iraq since the U.S.-led
invasion last year.
In his interview, Powell disputed U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan's assertion that the U.S.-led
war in Iraq was illegal, saying it was "not a very useful
statement to make at this point".
The United Nations has played down Annan's statement,
which spokesman Fred Eckhard said Annan felt was no
different from what he had been saying for more than a
year.
On Thursday, in the latest kidnappings of foreigners,
gunmen abducted two Americans and a Briton from a house in
an affluent neighbourhood of central Baghdad.
Police said they had found the body of a man believed
to be a Westerner, apparently dead for some time, late on
Thursday near Samarra, north of Baghdad.
Australia has been investigating a claim that two of
its citizens were kidnapped in the area.
Two male French journalists and two Italian female aid
workers have also been taken hostage in the past few weeks.
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