Iraq insurgents clash with U.S. forces
(Agenices)
Updated: 2004-06-19 00:18

U.S soldiers search homes, as an Iraqi man they had detained lies near them, along a highway looking for suspects responsible for a roadside attack which destroyed a flatbed truck carrying wheat nearby in Baghdad, Iraq Friday June 18, 2004. [AP]

Insurgents clashed Friday with U.S. forces near Baghdad for the second time in as many days, and crews repairing a sabotaged crude oil pipeline expect to have full exports flowing by the end of next week.

The patrol from the U.S. Army 1st Infantry came under attack about 7:45 a.m. in the town of Buhriz, near Baqouba, said Maj. Neal O'Brien. Troops returned fire, killing two militants, he said. There were no U.S. casualties.

U.S. helicopters hovered over buildings and cars gutted by fire. Masked gunmen held up rifles and rocket propelled grenades as they danced for the cameras. Women wailed in the streets.

Baqouba, a largely Sunni Muslim area 35 miles north of Baghdad that formed a core of support for Saddam Hussein's former regime, has been the scene of frequent clashes between coalition forces and insurgents. Fighting in the city broke out again late Friday afternoon, witnesses said by telephone, but there were no further details from the military.

On Thursday, another 1st Infantry patrol came under attack in the same area. There were no U.S. casualties from either attack.

A Shi'ite Muslim militiaman of the Mehdi army, allied with cleric Moqrada al-Sadr, makes a mobile telephone call while guarding Friday prayers in the Baghdad suburb of Al Sadr, June 18, 2004. [Reuters]

Military officials said seven insurgents had been killed in the two days of skirmishes, but officials at Baqouba General Hospital said five people had died and 15 were injured. Insurgents often don't bring wounded fighters to the hospital out of fear of arrest.

Four Iraqi policemen were injured in the southern city of Nasiriyah when a bomb they were trying to defuse exploded, witnesses said. An Italian officer confirmed the explosion and the injuries.

In southeastern Iraq, British forces clashed with fighters loyal to a radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr late Thursday, killing at least two insurgents, witnesses and military officials said.

No British soldiers were hurt in the fighting in Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, a British military spokesman said.

The insurgents used small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in clashes that lasted about two hours, witnesses said.

Insurgents also launched attacks against British soldiers in Amarah on Wednesday after they detained militia leader Ahmed Hachi.

Al-Sadr's forces are skirmishing regularly with U.S. troops in Baghdad's Sadr City district, but they were routed by the 1st Armored Division in Karbala and their ranks were significantly reduced in Najaf and Kufa, coalition forces say.

Crews are completing repairs on a major pipeline system in the south that was sabotaged by insurgents a weeks ago. Full crude oil exports are expected by end of next week, but could come as early as Wednesday, coalition officials said Friday.

The smaller of the two lines damaged in the attack is nearly fixed, and could be tested as early as Saturday, said Dominic d'Angelo, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in the southern city of Basra.

Armed Iraqis with their faces covered are seen at the entrance to a narrow street in the northern town of Baquba northeast of Baghdad. [AFP]

The damage to the larger pipeline is still being assessed, he said.

The resumption of full exports is expected "for the end of next week. But they could come by the middle. Wednesday is a possibility," he said.

The attacks against the pipeline appear part of an insurgent campaign to undermine public support for the interim government which takes power June 30, marking the end of the American-run occupation.

In the boldest attack in months, a car bomber smashed into a crowd seeking jobs at a military recruitment center Thursday in Baghdad, killing at least 35 Iraqis and wounded another 145. Another car bombing on Thursday killed six Iraqi civil defense fighters and injured four others in Balad, north of Baghdad.

Defense Minister Hazem al-Shalan promised harsh retaliation.

"We will cut off the hands of those people, we will slit their throats if it is necessary to do so," al-Shalan said.

Asked if the new government would impose martial law if security continues to deteriorate, interim Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Naqib said: "If we need to do it, yes, we'll do it, we won't hesitate."

Most of the victims were poor Iraqis desperate to take dangerous jobs in the Iraqi security forces because of few alternatives in a country with up to 45 percent unemployment. They took their chances at the recruitment center even after a February bombing there killed 47 people.

The Balad bombing came a day after a rocket slammed into a U.S. logistics base near Balad, killing three U.S. soldiers and wounding 25 other people, including two civilians.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said it will send 3,000 soldiers to northern Iraq in early August. Once the deployment is complete, South Korea will be the largest coalition partner after the United States and Britain.

South Korea already has 600 military medics and engineers in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. They are expected to head to northern Iraq beginning in mid-July to prepare facilities ahead of the arrival of the main force, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

In Tokyo, the Cabinet approved a plan Friday for Japanese troops, now in Iraq on a humanitarian mission, to stay and join a multinational force after the interim government takes control.

More than 300 people have been killed in attacks on police stations and recruitment centers since September. In the most lethal attacks, five suicide bombings near police stations and a police academy in Basra killed at least 68 and wounded 200.

Meanwhile, al-Sadr who led a two-month uprising in Iraq called on the interim government Friday to end its alliance with the U.S.-led coalition.

"Your alliance with the occupation will bring only shame and disgrace to you," al-Sadr told President Ghazi al-Yawer in comments read by an aide during the weekly Friday sermon at the Kufa mosque.

Al-Sadr's uprising, was launched in April after U.S. occupation authorities closed his newspaper. The rebellion has left hundreds dead in clashes with U.S. troops.

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