- BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Mortars
targeted the offices of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, wounding five people,
while two Iraqi national guards died and 21 people were wounded in gunbattle
elsewhere in the capital as the government unveiled emergency measures
to crush the rebellion
-
- The attacks formed part of a chorus of booms and gunfire
that reverberated around Iraq also leaving at least one policeman dead
in the northern city of Mosul and 13 other people hurt, officials said.
-
- One US soldier also sustained minor wounds in the Iraqi
capital, which had been relatively quiet since the return of sovereignty
on June 28.
-
- At around 9:00 am (0500 GMT) four mortar rounds hit near
Allawi's political party, the Iraqi National Accord, and his residence,
which are about 500 metres (yards) away from the heavily fortified Green
Zone, officials and police said.
-
- One exploded on a house just 20 metres away from the
area, said police officer Saad Chanchul, who was on the scene. Another
projectile exploded in the road.
-
- "At least five people are injured," said Mahmud
Mushkool, a police sergeant. Three were Iraqi civilians, including a woman,
and two were security guards.
-
- The premier was recently put under a death sentence in
an audiotape posted on an Islamic website in the name of the Al-Qaeda-linked
Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, blamed by the Americans for much of the violence
sweeping across Iraq.
-
- In turn, an armed group calling itself the "Salvation
Movement" threatened in a video aired Tuesday to kill Zarqawi if he
did not leave Iraq.
-
- "This is an attempt to resist the multinational
forces and we believe it is largely done with the support of foreign agencies,"
declared Hussein al-Shabib, a coordinator for the Iraqi National Accord's
political bureau.
-
- "But the Iraqi government is committed to maintaining
security in the country especially as we build up to elections a few months'
time," he said referring to a national poll due in January.
-
- In a bloody morning for Baghdad, a heavy gunbattle broke
out on the streets as insurgents shot at Iraqi national guards and US soldiers,
supported by helicopters, witnesses said.
-
- Two guards were killed, 19 wounded and two policemen
also hurt in the fight on Haifa Street, next to Al-Talaya Square on the
western side of the Tigris River, hospital sources said.
-
- Earlier in the morning, a US soldier was lightly hurt
due to indirect fire in an attack in west Baghdad that also damaged two
vehicles, the miltiary said.
-
- Up north, police reported that an Iraqi policeman was
killed and eight other people, including seven policemen, wounded in a
bomb blast in the centre of Mosul.
-
- And five Iraqi police, including an officer, were injured
in two separate attacks on police checkpoints around Kirkuk, 255 kilometres
(miles) north of the Iraqi capital, police said.
-
- The violence came as the government unveiled the "national
safety law" which gives Allawi the right to impose curfews, arrest
suspects and ban associations.
-
- According to a copy of the text given to AFP, the premier
can declare an emergency in "any area of Iraq where people face a
threat to the lives of its citizen because of some people's permanent violent
campaign to prevent the creation of a government that represents all Iraqis."
-
- Underscoring the determination of the insurgency, the
US military said four more marines were killed in action on Tuesday in
western Iraq taking its death toll in the restive region to 14 in just
over one week.
-
- Meanwhile, a car loaded with some 750 kilogrammes (1,650
pounds) of explosives and at least 15 mortar rounds was discovered and
detonated Wednesday morning in central Baghdad, police and witnesses said.
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- Copyright © 2004 Agence France Presse. All rights
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