Updated: 04:41 AM EST
At Least 10 Dead in Baghdad Truck Bombing
By SLOBODAN LEKIC, AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Dec. 17) - A truck loaded with explosives rammed into a small
bus near a police station Wednesday, killing at least 10 Iraqis, an Iraqi
deputy minister said. He blamed the attack on Saddam Hussein loyalists angry
over the former dictator's capture.
The explosion occurred before dawn in al-Bayaa, a poor district in southwest
Baghdad, police said. Two cars nearby were destroyed. U.S. soldiers and Iraqi
police secured the area after the explosion.
Ahmed Kadhim Ibrahim, deputy interior minister, said the death toll was 10 and
that the truck was speeding toward a police station, but collided with a bus in
the way.
Bassem Naiem, a policeman at the scene, earlier said 22 people were killed, but
authorities later revised the toll downward. There was no immediate explanation
for the discrepancy in the death tolls.
Suicide bombers have frequently targeted Iraqi police stations in strikes at
what they view as collaborators with the U.S.-led occupation authorities. The
coalition scored a major victory over the weekend with the capture of Saddam
Hussein.
Ibrahim blamed the bomb Wednesday on Saddam's supporters.
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''They were trying to avenge the cowardly leader, who they saw as a hero in the
past,'' Ibrahim said.
The explosion followed riots in Baghdad by Saddam loyalists, who also ambushed
a U.S. patrol in Samarra, stormed the office of a U.S.-backed mayor in Fallujah
and battled American troops in Ramadi as cities in Iraq's 'Sunni Triangle'
region seethed over the ex-dictator's capture.
Another explosion reported early Wednesday near a railway station in al-Yarmouk
neighborhood turned out to be a false alarm.
As soldiers fought off angry protesters and guerrilla attacks Monday night and
Tuesday, the 4th Infantry Division said it had snared a leader of the
insurgency and 78 other people in a raid north of Baghdad, not far from where
Saddam was captured three days earlier.
A roadside bomb wounded three American soldiers in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit,
and a pro-Saddam demonstration in the northern city of Mosul ended in violence,
with a policeman killed and a second injured.
More on This Story
· Are We Winning Now?
· Bush: Saddam Deserves 'Ultimate Justice'
· U.S. Troops Arrest 79 in Raid
· Evidence Points to Massacre of Kuwaitis
· Rumsfeld Ponders Getting Saddam to Talk
President Bush said Saddam deserved the ''ultimate penalty'' but it would be up
to the people of Iraq to decide whether he should be executed. In an interview
with ABC News, the president also said Iraqis are ''capable of conducting the
trial themselves.''
The United Nations, the Vatican and many countries worldwide - especially in
Europe - oppose putting Saddam on trial before any court that could sentence
him to death.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said in Baghdad
on Tuesday that military planners were preparing for American troops to stay in
Iraq for up to two more years despite capturing the former Iraqi leader.
The 4th Infantry Division raid in the village of Abu Safa, near Samarra and
about 60 miles north of Baghdad, began late Monday after insurgents in Samarra
ambushed U.S. forces. The U.S. military said its troops killed 11 of the
attackers, who released a flock of pigeons to signal one another that the
American patrol was in range. No Americans were hurt.
By early Tuesday, U.S. troops arrested Qais Hattam, the No. 5 fugitive on the
4th Infantry's list of ''high value targets,'' said Capt. Gaven Gregory of the
division's 3rd Brigade. The guerrilla leader was described as a major financier
of insurgents who have been fighting the U.S.-led coalition for months.
Maj. Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry, said all those captured
in the raid were in one room and apparently conducting a meeting to plan future
attacks.
She said U.S. forces also seized a substantial weapons cache.
''We got a significant amount of ammunition and weapons, perfect material for
making IEDs (roadside bombs),'' Aberle told CNN.
Hattam is not on the U.S. list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis. Thirteen fugitives
from that list remain at large.
On Wednesday, the 4th Infantry said it had started a new series of raids,
dubbed Operation Ivy Blizzard, in Samarra along with Iraqi security forces.
A written statement from the division said the sweep was requested by local
leaders and that it would ''target, isolate and eliminate former regime
elements and other anti-coalition cells.''
Myers, in a visit to Iraq to meet with American troops and top U.S. officials,
said Pentagon planners were focusing on a U.S. military presence for the next
year or two.
''Beyond that, I don't think we can make any guesses,'' he said, adding that a
stable Iraq is the key.
Myers said he expected Saddam's capture to cause the insurgency to dwindle, but
added it would take time.
''When you take this leader, who was at one time a very popular leader in this
region, and you find him in a hole in the ground, that's a pretty powerful
signal that you're on the wrong team,'' Myers said.
In the Samarra ambush, two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on the Army
vehicles and took cover among children leaving school. The attackers also used
a roadside bomb, automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades but inflicted
no casualties on the U.S. patrol, the military said.
Samarra, a volatile town in the so-called Sunni Triangle that stretches north
and west of Baghdad, was the scene of an intense battle between U.S. troops and
insurgents last month. American commanders claimed to have killed 54
guerrillas, but residents and police reported that fewer than 10 people - most
of them civilians - died in the firefight.
In the restive city of Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, several hundred
armed protesters carrying Saddam portraits stormed the mayor's office Monday
night, forcing policemen to flee, according to witnesses and the U.S. military.
When an infantry company from the 82nd Airborne Division responded - backed by
tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles - guerrillas attacked the Americans with
rocket-propelled grenades. U.S. troops sustained no injuries and killed one
attacker, the military said.
Several stores were gutted by fire or badly damaged in the clashes.
On Tuesday, thieves looted a U.S. Army supply train near Fallujah.
In another pro-Saddam demonstration, a military statement said soldiers in
Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, killed three protesters and wounded two
others Monday, after as many as 750 people rallied in a show of support for
Saddam.
The statement said U.S. troops were fired on repeatedly and that one soldier
was wounded.
Lt. General Ahmed Kadhem, deputy Iraqi interior minister and Baghdad chief of
police, said pro-Saddam rioters in Al-Adhamiya neighborhood in Baghdad
exchanged fire with the police late Monday. Four civilians were killed and two
policemen wounded, he said.
AP-NY-12-17-03 0402EST
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