- BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) --
A series of explosions across Iraq killed at least 18 people on Saturday
as the United States predicted an upturn of violence ahead of a Muslim
holiday.
-
- Guerrillas killed nine in a car bomb blast in the northern
city of Mosul, a separate bomb killed three U.S. soldiers north of Baghdad
and at least six were killed in a pair of explosions in a crowded residential
area of the capital. U.S. military officials have warned of the possibility
of more violence against U.S. forces and those seen as cooperating with
them ahead of the Feast of the Sacrifice, given that guerrillas have often
struck on significant dates.
-
- "We heard the blast and saw that the deceased was
missing," said Ali Muzan at the scene of the second late evening blast
in Baghdad. "He died on the way to the hospital.
-
- The explosion was in the same Baladiyyat district of
Baghdad where an earlier blast killed at least five civilians, according
to hospital sources.
-
- Earlier in the day, police and hospital officials in
Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, said 44 people were wounded
by the car bomb outside a police station. Debris was scattered 300 meters
(yards) away and body parts littered the scorched ground.
-
- Thick smoke billowed from blazing vehicles and windows
across a wide radius were shattered. U.S. officers said there were no U.S.
casualties.
-
- The U.S. military said three U.S. soldiers were killed
when a roadside bomb blew up next to a convoy traveling between Kirkuk
and Tikrit, the hometown of ousted leader Saddam Hussein 175 km north of
Baghdad.
-
- The deaths brought to 364 the number of U.S. soldiers
killed in action since the start of the Iraq war last March. Including
non-combat deaths, the toll is 522.
-
- Soldiers and policemen in Baghdad gave conflicting accounts
of the first blast in Baghdad's Baladiyyat district, some saying it was
mortar fire and others rockets. A father and son who ran a kiosk nearby
were killed, sources at a hospital said.
-
- Guerrillas have often struck on significant dates --
a car bomb destroyed a Baghdad restaurant on New Year's Eve, killing eight,
and on October 27, the first day of Ramadan, coordinated suicide attacks
in Baghdad killed at least 35.
-
- U.N. GO-AHEAD
-
- Despite the violence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
has said experts will arrive within days to assess the feasibility of elections
before a June 30 deadline for the handover of sovereignty from the U.S.-led
coalition to an Iraqi government.
-
- All but a few U.N. international staff left Iraq last
year after suicide attacks on its headquarters in Baghdad, including one
on August 19 that killed 22 people, among whom was head of mission Sergio
Vieira de Mello.
-
- The U.N. electoral team will spend several weeks traveling
the country to assess how possible it would be to hold a free and fair
national poll.
-
- U.S. authorities in Iraq have said they will listen to
U.N. recommendations, but the head of the Iraqi Governing Council, Adnan
Pachachi, said on Saturday no one would necessarily be bound by any advice
the U.N. offers.
-
- "The U.N. will make recommendations, not decisions,"
he told a news conference. "It's only a recommendation, we have the
right to accept or reject it, and to make the final decision."
-
- The United Nations is returning at Washington's request,
after U.S. plans for the handover of sovereignty were rejected by Iraq's
leading Shi'ite cleric.
-
- The initial plan was for regional caucuses to select
a transitional assembly by the end of May. The assembly would then pick
a government to take over sovereignty by end-June.
-
- But Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, revered by much of Iraq's
60 percent Shi'ite majority, has said the new government should be directly
elected.
-
- Washington, and many members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi
Governing Council, say that is not possible as there are no voter rolls
and security remains precarious.
-
- Separately, Iraq said it would attend security talks
with neighboring states in Kuwait mid-February, opening a chapter in diplomatic
and international ties.
-
- - Additional reporting by C. Bryson Hull in Tikrit, Michael
Georgy and Fiona O'Brien in Baghdad
-
- Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
-
- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&e=11&u=/nm/iraq_dc
|
