http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060315/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_violence
U.S. forces bombed a house during a raid north of Baghdad early
Wednesday, killing 11 people - mostly women and children, while
insurgent attacks elsewhere left four dead, police and relatives said.
The U.S. military acknowledged the raid and said it captured one
insurgent. It took place near Balad, about 50 miles north of the
capital. But the military said only four people were killed - a man,
two women and a child.
Authorities in the Shiite holy city of Karabala, meanwhile, imposed a
six-day driving ban starting Thursday to protect pilgrims from a wave
of sectarian killing.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hinted that U.S. troop levels may
increase slightly in the coming days because of the pilgrimages
connected to the holiday of Ashura, which ends March 20. Increased
attacks marked the celebration during 2004 and 2005.
Rumsfeld said Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. military officer in
Iraq, "may decide he wants to bulk up slightly for the pilgrimage." He
did not elaborate.
Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, in nearby Samarra, said American warplanes
and armor were used in the strike, which flattened the house and killed
the 11 people inside.
An AP reporter at the scene in the rural Isahaqi area said the roof of
the house collapsed, three cars were destroyed and two cows killed.
Eleven bodies, wrapped in blankets, were driven in the back of three
pickup trucks to the Tikrit General Hospital, about 45 miles to the
north, relatives said.
Associated Press photographs showed the bodies of two men, five
children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital
accompanied by grief-stricken relatives. The victims were covered in
dust with bits of rubble in their hair.
Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of the killed head
of the family - Faez Khalaf - told AP at the hospital that U.S.
forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early Wednesday.
Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members
who lived at the house and two were visitors.
"The killed family was not part of the resistance, they were women and
children," Ahmed Khalaf said. "The Americans have promised us a better
life, but we get only death."
The U.S. military said it was targeting and captured an individual
suspected of supporting foreign fighters for the al-Qaida in Iraq
terror network.
"Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building,"
said Tech. Sgt. Stacy Simon, a military spokeswoman. "Coalition forces
returned fire utilizing both air and ground assets."
Bomb blasts killed at least four more people and injured dozens
Wednesday in Baghdad and north of the capital.
The worst attacks were in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where
there were at least three explosions.
A suicide bomber on a bicycle missed a police patrol, killing two
civilians and injuring six others, police said. The provincial command
said the bomber's explosives appeared to have detonated prematurely as
he was pedaling toward the patrol.
Later, an explosion in a cell phone shop killed two more people and
injured 12, police said.
Police at the scene found apparatus used to detonate explosives,
leading them to suspect the shop may have been used to manufacture
bombs. At least five other shops were damaged in the blast.
Another bomb targeting a police patrol injured two officers, police
said.
The Iraqi army hit back Wednesday, arresting about 20 suspects and
confiscating numerous weapons in a dawn raid in a nearby farming area,
said Lt. Col. Tarik Muhei.
Late Tuesday, a roadside bomb exploded as an official with the Shiite
Badr group was driving through Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of
Baghdad. The official, Ali Karim, escaped unharmed but his son was
killed and nine other people were injured, police Brig. Sarhad Qadir
said. The Badr group is linked to a Shiite militia accused of
widespread abuses by Sunni Muslims.
The deaths of 87 men were blamed on deepening sectarian violence in
recent days - most of them shot to death execution-style. Twenty-nine
of the bodies, dressed only in underwear, were dug out of a single
grave Tuesday in a Shiite neighborhood of east Baghdad.
The timing of the killings linked much of the bloodshed to revenge
killings for a bomb and mortar attack in a Baghdad Shiite slum that
killed at least 58 and wounded more than 200 at nightfall Sunday.
Revenge was swift in some cases, and by early Monday police began
uncovering the bodies, although the discoveries were not immediately
reported. The gruesome finds continued through the day Tuesday, marking
the second wave of sectarian retribution killings since bombers
destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month.
In the mayhem after the golden dome atop the Askariya shrine in Samarra
was destroyed on Feb. 23, more than 500 people were reported killed,
many of them Sunni Muslims and their clerics. Dozens of mosques were
damaged or destroyed.
Underlining the uneasiness in Baghdad, Interior Ministry officials
announced another driving ban, this one from 8 p.m. Wednesday to 4 p.m.
Thursday to guard against car and suicide bombs while the Iraqi
parliament meets in its first session since the Dec. 15 election.
After the driving ban was announced, the Cabinet said Thursday would be
a holiday in the capital, presumably because residents would not be
able to get to work. Restrictions on movement also had been put in
place on the two weekends after the Samarra bombing to try to quell the
violence.
Scores of frightened Shiite families have fled predominantly Sunni
parts of Baghdad in recent weeks, some at gunpoint. More than 100
families arrived between Monday and Tuesday alone in Wasit province, in
the southern Shiite heartland, said Haitham Ajaimi Manie, an official
with the provisional migration directorate.
North of the capital, a roadside bomb exploded Tuesday among Shiite
pilgrims headed on foot to Karbala, killing one person and injuring
seven near Baqouba, police said.
Also Tuesday, the U.S. military reported the deaths of two more
soldiers in fighting in the insurgent-infested Anbar province. That
raised the death toll of U.S. military members killed since the start
of the war in March 2003 to 2,310, according to an Associated Press
count. The figure includes seven military civilians.
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The Bush Regime: "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be
the first against the wall when the revolution comes."
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SCOTT MCCLELLAN - arrested for lewd behavior after witnesses report him
masturbating in a movie theatre during "Brokeback Mountain."
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