- TIKRIT, Iraq (AFP) - Four
Iraqis were killed when a US convoy opened fire on their car in northern
Iraq as three US soldiers were confirmed dead in separate insurgency attacks.
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- The Iraqis, including a woman and a child, were killed
when a US convoy opened fire on their car in the northern town of Tikrit,
police said, but American troops in the area denied involvement.
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- "The car, a grey Chevrolet Caprice, was hit by 27
shots and skidded, resulting in the death of four people, including a woman
and a nine year-old child," Tikrit police chief Colonel Ussama Adham
Abdel Ghaffer told AFP.
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- US Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell, head of the 4th
Infantry Division battalion that patrols the area, said he was aware of
a shooting incident involving a civilian car, but emphasized his men were
not involved.
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- He said he was unsure of the details but had received
unconfirmed reports that three or four people had been killed near Tikrit,
the hometown of ousted Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.
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- A fifth occupant who survived the incident with chest
injuries also said the vehicle had received fire from a US convoy.
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- A US soldier was killed Friday in an attack at Balad,
75 kilometres (45 miles) north of Baghdad, shortly after insurgents in
the volatile western town of Fallujah shot down a US helicopter killing
one soldier.
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- Sergeant Robert Cargie, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry
Division, said the Balad attack occurred at about 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) and
that the soldier was struck by shrapnel from a mortar exploding inside
a military base.
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- Two soldiers were also killed and three wounded Friday
at 12:00 pm (0900 GMT) when their patrol hit a roadside bomb south of Baghdad,
the US military said Saturday.
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- The deaths bring to 215 the number of US combat fatalities
in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared an end to major hostilities
on May 1 and comes amid fears of a switch in tactics by insurgents to target
civilians.
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- The US military said Saturday it arrested 128 suspects
and seized large quantities of arms and explosives during 24 hours of raids
across western Iraq.
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- Iraqi police said six suspects, including a Yemeni and
an Afghan, had been arrested by US troops and weapons seized near the restive
town of Baqubah, north of Baghdad.
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- Meanwhile, Reuters news agency said Saturday that three
of its employees arrested at the scene of the Fallujah helicopter crash
were still in US custody and no reason had been given for their detention.
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- US Brigadier General Mark Kimmit said the downed helicopter
was fired on after the attack by people wearing jackets labelled "press"
and four were later arrested. It was not clear if these included the Reuters
staff.
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- In the northern Iraqi oil centre of Kirkuk, where ethnic
rivalries erupted into violence earlier this week and left seven people
dead, six people were injured in separate shooting incidents.
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- A Kurd was wounded when his car came under gunfire on
Saturday night by two former members of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia,
police said adding that it fired at the assailants and wounded them too.
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- Two Iraqi Arabs who attempted to attack police were lightly
injured when officers opened fire, police said. A Turkmen security guard
was also injured when unknown assailants opened fire on a Turkmen political
party headquarters.
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- Police indicated the violence was linked to the recent
rise in ethnic tensions that have challenged a fragile truce between Kirkuk's
Kurdish majority and Arabs and Turkmen.
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- The US army imposed a curfew in the city Saturday for
the second night as they sought to stave off further violence in the ethnic
tinderbox, and appealed for calm in a statement released the following
day.
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- Saturday's shootings came as the top US civil administrator
in Iraq, Paul Bremer, and his British deputy, Jeremy Greenstock, met with
Kurdish chiefs Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani for talks on the country's
future.
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- The talks began Friday at a hotel near Arbil, 350 kilometres
(217 miles) north of Baghdad, and were ongoing, according to Kurdish television
reports.
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- While discussions touched on the coalition's six-month
deadline for handing power back to Iraqis, they also raised the possibility
of uniting the regional governments of Kurd-controlled provinces Arbil,
Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah.
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- All three have enjoyed virtual autonomy since the end
of the 1991 Gulf War when a US-led coalition started air patrols over the
region, shielding the Kurdish area from the wrath of Saddam Hussein.
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- The talks also came amid Kurdish demands for an expanded
self-rule region within a federal Iraq.
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- Many minority Sunni Muslim Arabs have reacted furiously
to the requests, particularly in Kirkuk which was the target of a long-running
policy of Arabisation under Saddam's regime.
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20040103/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_040103220004
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