100 dead as US troops storm rebel-held town
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-02 10:10

At least 100 people were killed and 180 wounded as US and Iraqi troops stormed the rebel-held city of Samarra in a first effort to restore government control before promised elections, while a shocked nation buried 34 children killed by car bombs.

A Shiite Iraqi, loyal to cleric Moqtada Sadr, weeps over the coffin of his colleague who was killed during clashes against US troops in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. [AFP]

Iraq's hostage crisis showed no let-up, with Jakarta confirming two nationals were among the 10 latest victims. Al-Jazeera television said the two were seized along with six Iraqis and two Lebanese working for an electrical equipment firm.

A massive force of 3,000 US troops and 2,000 Iraqi auxiliaries poured into Samarra before dawn and seized the city hall and police stations in the largest joint operation since last year's invasion.

The armoured assault came just a day after the US-backed interim government vowed to restore control over all insurgent enclaves in the restive Sunni Arab belt north and west of Baghdad by next month in readiness for nationwide polls promised for January.

"In response to repeated and unprovoked attacks by anti-Iraqi forces (US military terminology for insurgents), Iraqi security forces and multinational forces secured the government and police buildings in Samarra," the US military said.

A spokesman said 114 insurgents were killed for the loss of just one US soldier. Four more American troops were wounded.

Samarra's main hospital received 90 dead and 180 wounded, said Dr Khaled Ahmed.

There was intense fighting between troops and insurgents in the city centre around the gold-domed Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum, a revered Shiite Muslim shrine in the midst of this overhwelmingly Sunni Arab city of some 250,000 people.

Smoke billowed into the sky as the two sides traded fire on the hallowed ground, but the Iraqi army's 36th Commando Battalion secured the area and there was no damage to the mausoleum, the military said.

A Turkish hostage was freed by US troops in the city, it added.

By midday (0900 GMT), US forces held the city hall and police stations, while Iraqi troops had won control of key heritage sites, including the renowned spiral minaret of the ninth century Al-Malwiya mosque on Samarra's outskirts.

Iraqi forces captured 37 insurgents, said National Security Advisor Qassem Daoud.

The massive offensive came despite mounting talk in recent days of an imminent deal between insurgents and Iraq's interim authorities for a peaceful restoration of government control.

Only Thursday, provincial governor Hamed Hamud al-Qaissy said a deal was close and cautioned against any resort to force, saying it risked a new spiral of violence in the region.

The leader of a Samarra political association also expressed dismay at the the offensive.

"We were in talks with Prime Minister Iyad Allawi about the situation in Samarra, including reaching an agreement to allow Iraqi forces to enter the city. We were surprised by this military offensive," said Khaled Naji al-Samarrai.

But on Friday night, Iraq's national security advisor insisted municipal, clerical and tribal leaders had asked the government to intervene at a meeting in Baghdad last Sunday.

"They said frankly please come and help us," said Daoud. "Even if they didn't ask us, we would have still gone into the city."

The government has come under mounting pressure to reassert control amid mounting expressions of doubt that credible nationwide elections can be held as planned in January amid an escalation of car bombings and other violence across the Sunni Arab belt, which fared relatively well under Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime.

A double suicide car bombing at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Baghdad killed 34 children and eight adults on the last day of September, capping one of Iraq's deadliest months that saw nearly 600 people killed, according to an AFP count.

Adults and children in the poverty-stricken neighbourhood of Al-Amel, where the streets are filled with rubbish and sewage, were gathered for the opening of a brand new water pump station built by the US military.

On Friday, the working-class Baghdad neighbourhood was burying its dead and still finding parts of children's bodies at the scene of the blasts.

The attacks followed another car bombing west of the capital that killed one US soldier and two Iraqis.

In a new bid to secure the release of British hostage Kenneth Bigley, 100,000 leaflets from his family appealing for the 62-year-old engineer's release were handed out at Baghdad mosques, some of them in areas loyal to the insurgents, the British embassy said.

But an unofficial French mediator acknowledged in Damascus that his bid to secure the release of two captive French newsmen had failed.

"I was expecting the journalists to return today, but that hasn't happened for security reasons and because other people claiming to speak for the French government have said they could come up with large amounts of cash," said French MP Didier Julia.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin refused to be downcast, saying the information coming out of Iraq was "not complete" and that the government still had "a favourable outlook" about the prospects for a happy ending.

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