- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The checkpoint
killings of eight civilians by U.S. troops edgy about suicide attacks stoked
Arab anger on Tuesday and damaged American efforts to win Iraqi hearts
and minds.
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- U.S. Marines shot dead an unarmed driver and badly wounded
his passenger at a roadblock south of Baghdad, a day after seven women
and children were killed in a similar checkpoint shooting near the Shi'ite
holy city of Najaf.
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- As the ground war became more tangled, new explosions
hit Baghdad in the 13th day of a conflict that President Bush told Iraqis
he would pursue "until your country is free."
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- Heavy air raids pummeled the capital's southern and western
outskirts where Republican Guard units man defensive lines.
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- Huge blasts in central Baghdad overnight sent smoke billowing
from a compound used by President Saddam Hussein and his powerful son Qusay.
Another explosion set off a fire at the headquarters of the Iraqi Olympic
Committee, headed by Saddam's eldest son Uday.
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- Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said
the raids on Baghdad had killed 24 people and wounded more than 125 since
Monday. He said 32 civilians had been killed and more than 144 wounded
in other parts of Iraq.
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- The checkpoint deaths are a blow to U.S. and British
hopes of convincing Iraqis to welcome an invasion whose stated goal is
to oust Saddam, not combat the people.
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- They also fueled anger across the Arab world.
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- "It was a deliberate act in cold blood to avenge
September 11. I hope Bush, Blair and their families are pleased,"
Hamza Abdulrahman, a civil servant in Oman, said of Monday's incident.
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- In the north, two U.S. planes struck at targets near
the oil city of Kirkuk. Reuters correspondent Mike Collett-White, watching
from Kurdish-held territory nearby, saw nine plumes of black smoke rise
into the sky after the bombing runs.
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- "MIGHTY FORCE"
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- "We are coming with a mighty force to end the rule
of your oppressors," Bush declared in a speech aimed at Iraqis.
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- At ground level in the war zone, things were less clear-cut.
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- U.S. Marines said they fired on a pickup truck that sped
toward them at a checkpoint near the southern town of Shatra.
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- Neither the driver nor his passenger was armed, Marines
told Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire. "I thought it was a suicide
bomb," said one of the Marines.
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- Troops have been nervous since a checkpoint suicide car
bomb attack killed four U.S. soldiers near Najaf on Saturday.
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- In allied Kuwait, U.S. soldiers shot and wounded the
driver of a car which burst past a checkpoint into a base near the Iraqi
border after midnight. Kuwait said the man was a Kuwaiti army captain hurrying
to work who had no hostile intent.
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- An Egyptian electrician drove his truck into a group
of U.S. soldiers at another base in Kuwait on Sunday, injuring 15. Troops
shot and wounded him but his motive was not clear.
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- On Monday, U.S. troops fired on a van which failed to
stop at a desert checkpoint near Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, only
to find it was full of women and children.
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- U.S. Central Command said seven of the 13 women and children
in the van were killed and two wounded. But a Washington Post correspondent
near the scene said 10 people were killed and suggested troops had fired
without giving enough warning.
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- Marine Corps General Peter Pace said the soldiers had
felt threatened and "absolutely did the right thing."
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- The troops at Najaf are among U.S. forces fighting their
way toward Baghdad against stronger than expected Iraqi resistance.
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- PUSHING TOWARD BAGHDAD
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- On Monday Reuters correspondents with U.S. military units
said troops fought Iraqi soldiers around a Euphrates river bridge at Hindiya,
just 50 miles from Baghdad -- the closest to the capital that ground fighting
has been reported.
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- U.S. troops have also advanced to the outskirts of Hilla,
about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
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- Iraq reported fierce fighting in and around the southern
city of Nassiriya, saying the invaders had taken heavy losses.
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- "The blood of the enemy is flowing profusely,"
a military spokesman said on Iraqi television.
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- The United States has paid scant attention to the diplomatic
fall-out from the Iraq war so far, but Secretary of State Colin Powell
starts a hastily arranged trip to Europe this week.
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- He visits Turkey on Wednesday to try to patch up ties
damaged by Washington's failed effort to persuade Ankara to let U.S. troops
cross its territory to invade Iraq.
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- Powell will fly to Brussels on Thursday for talks with
leaders of the European Union and NATO -- two groups that have been deeply
divided over the war in Iraq.
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- America's top diplomat said he planned to discuss "how
we can all work together to provide a better life" for the Iraqi people
after "decades of devastation" under Saddam's rule.
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- But Greece, current EU president, signaled the talks
might go beyond Powell's post-war reconstruction agenda. "If this
is a move where the European voice is heard, then it should be a message
of peace," the Greek foreign minister said.
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- On world financial markets anxiously eyeing Iraq, European
stocks rose, Wall Street looked set to open higher and the dollar arrested
its fall as investors began a new quarter seemingly resigned to a protracted
conflict.
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- CIVILIAN TOLL
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- The women and children killed at the checkpoint near
Najaf were the first civilian deaths from U.S. shooting acknowledged by
Central Command since the war began. But correspondents with U.S. units
have reported other civilian deaths in ground fire.
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- Iraq says U.S. and British air and ground attacks have
killed 645 civilians and wounded well over 4,000.
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- Harrowing coverage of civilian casualties has increased
anti-war sentiment in the Muslim world and beyond.
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- "Every day, the newspapers are publishing pictures
of little Iraqi children wounded or dead. That makes me furious,"
said Sameh Nabil, a 25-year-old book vendor in central Cairo.
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- Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal urged Saddam
to make a "sacrifice for his country" and step down.
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- The United States says the invasion is to oust Saddam,
liberate his people and rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq denies
having such weapons and none has yet been found by the 100,000 or more
U.S. and British troops now in Iraq.
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- A Central Command official said the military was ready
to pay a very high price to oust Saddam. "If that means there will
be a lot of casualties, then there will be a lot of casualties."
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- U.S. forces have lost 51 killed and 14 missing. The death
of a bomb disposal expert brought Britain's toll to 26.
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- A British spokesman said normal life was resuming in
the southern town of Zubayr after troops took control there, but nearby
Basra remained in the grip of Saddam's forces.
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- Civilians fleeing the city of 1.5 million said they faced
intimidation from Saddam's Baath Party not to show opposition.
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- Central Command said a missile had been launched from
south of Baghdad at the Najaf region. A U.S. Patriot anti-missile battery
brought it down. A missile was also fired at Kuwait and was shot down by
a Patriot over Iraq, Kuwaiti officials said.
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