- BAGHDAD (IslamOnline.net
& News Agencies) -- As a British military vehicle was hit by an explosion
early Sunday, November 9, in Basra, a U.S. soldier died and another was
wounded in a bomb attack in Baghdad late Saturday, hours before unknown
assailants opened fire overnight Sunday on a U.S. military camp in Mosul.
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- The Headquarters of the U.S. Forces in the Iraqi capital
of Baghdad has come under another mortar attack by Iraqi fighters late
Saturday night, according to police sources said.
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- The sources added that the so-called "Green Zone,"
where the former Presidential Palace, Conference Palace and Al-Rashid Hotel
on the western bank of river Tigris that divides Baghdad into two sides,
received at least one mortar shell, but reported no casualties or material
damage.
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- But a U.S. military spokesman said that a round was fired
toward the closed off U.S.-led coalition's fortress-like Baghdad compound
Saturday night, but the shell fell short.
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- A series of loud explosions was heard in the Iraqi capital
late Saturday.
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- At least three blasts were heard in quick succession
at around 8:30 pm (1730 GMT) after smaller blasts were heard earlier in
the day.
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- The "Green Zone" had come under at least 3
mortar and Katusha rocket attacks launched by the Iraqi resistance forces
over the past few weeks, causing damage to some of its premises and killing
and wounding a number of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis working in the Zone.
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- As another sign anti-U.S. attacks were on the rise, one
soldier died and another was wounded in a bomb attack in Baghdad late Saturday,
a military spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
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- "One soldier was killed and another was wounded
in an improvised explosive attack at 7:45 pm" in Baghdad's Waziriyah
neighborhood, she said.
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- The latest fatalities raise to at least 150 the number
of U.S. troops killed in combat since May 1, when U.S. President George
Bush declared major hostilities had ended, according to an AFP count. The
count excludes anther six soldiers who were killed when a helicopter came
down Friday, pending investigations into the cause.
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- During the main, six-week offensive before that date,
114 Americans died from what the Pentagon terms ìhostile fireî.
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- In the northern city of Mosul, unknown assailants opened
fire overnight Sunday on a U.S. military camp, according to Iraqi police
sources.
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- "We were on a patrol when we heard four projectiles
fired on the area of the al-Ghizlani camp where U.S. troops are based.
It was about 4:45 am (1:45 am)," policeman Bashar Mohamad al-Nuaimi
told AFP.
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- "Most probably the assailants fired four mortar
rounds," he said.
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- U.S. forces immediately cordoned off the area as helicopters
hovered overhead, he said.
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- Witnesses reported that gunmen also attacked the Mosul
Hotel, a headquarters for U.S.-led occupation forces, at 3:00 am (0000
GMT) in the central sector of the city, 370 kilometers (230 miles) north
of Baghdad.
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- "I heard two rockets being fired on the Mosul Hotel,"
said neighbor Ali Abdullah, a 31-year-old former Iraqi army soldier.
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- "U.S. troops sealed off the area and blocked all
roads leading to the hotel after the two rockets were fired," said
Abdullah Shamer Mohamad, 25.
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- "I saw two helicopters hovering over the area,"
he said.
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- The U.S. military could not immediately be reached for
comment.
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- Basra Attack
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- The British forces also had their share of attacks Sunday.
A British military vehicle was hit by an explosion Sunday morning in the
southern port city of Basra, police and eyewitnesses told AFP.
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- The vehicle had a hole in it but no one was wounded,
said Basra's internal security chief Colonel Mohammed Qazen Al-Ali.
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- The British military had no immediate confirmation.
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- The blast happened near the medical college hospital
in central Basra when two British armored vehicles were passing on one
of Basra's main roads, but only one vehicle was hit.
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- The explosion could be heard several kilometers (miles)
away and left a crater in the ground, AFP reported.
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- Basra has been hit periodically by violence, the British
have been left relatively untroubled compared to U.S. troops stationed
around Baghdad and north and west of the capital.
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- Jets Raid Orchards
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- Back in Baghdad, U.S. military jets continued roaring
over Baghdad Saturday night, hours after a U.S. Coalition spokesman statement
that U.S. F16 fighter-bombers have raided "deserted" orchards
around the city of Tikrit, some 180 kms to the north of Baghdad, destroying
several houses but refrained to report human casualty figures.
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- The U.S. air raids, the first since the end of the U.S.-British
offensive that ended with Iraq's occupation last April, the spokesman said,
had followed the shooting down of a U.S. helicopter gunship last Thursday,
killing at least 6 U.S. soldiers and wounding others.
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- In a related development, a U.S. Coalition Forces commander
said that his forces Saturday arrested 12 persons suspected to have participated
in the Katusha rocket attacks on Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, when U.S.
Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz was residing in the hotel on October
26.
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- The Commander of the 1st U.S. Armored Division, Brigadier-General
Martin Dimpsy told reporters his 2nd Brigade had launched a raid during
the night on western Baghdad and arrested 12 of the 18 suspects charged
with having been behind the attack on Rashid Hotel that killed a U.S. officer
and wounded 15 U.S. soldiers.
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- "The U.S. soldiers who shared in the raids said
they broke down a cell, comprising a number of persons related to the former
regime, among them a financer, an importer and a number of activists, but
did not report any (non-Iraqi) Arabs among the arrested suspects,"
Dimpsy said.
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