- Two roadside bombs in northern Iraq killed three American
soldiers and an Iraqi civilian yesterday. The death toll among foreign
nationals in Iraq has now passed the 1,000 mark.
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- Two soldiers died and another three were injured
in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. Earlier, a soldier on patrol and
an Iraqi following a US convoy were killed in Beiji, 90 miles south of
Mosul. A second soldier was wounded in the blast, which was followed by
a gunfight in which the driver of an attacking vehicle was killed.
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- A military spokesman said that four US Marines killed
in western Iraq on Saturday had not died in combat, as originally reported,
but in a vehicle accident.
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- The latest fatalities have brought the death toll
among US forces to 889, of which 665 have been killed in combat and 224
in non-hostile circumstances. This takes the total number of non-Iraqi
deaths since the start of the war to 1,009.
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- Meanwhile, the government of the Philippines again
refused demands by an insurgent group to withdraw its personnel from Iraq
a month earlier than planned. The group that made the demand, which has
identified itself as part of the Islamic Army of Iraq, is holding a citizen
of the Philippines hostage. It pledged earlier to execute the man, Angelo
de la Cruz, if Manila did not agree to order the withdrawal by Saturday
evening. However, the group then extended the deadline by 24 hours. Manila
has 50 personnel on humanitarian duties in Iraq who are due to come out
of the country at the end of next month.
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- Bulgaria said that it had received information that
two of its citizens, both lorry drivers, who are also believed to have
been taken hostage, are still alive, even though a deadline for their execution
by their captives has already passed.
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- The four US Marines killed on Saturday were in al-Anbar
province in western Iraq. At first, Pentagon sources said the men, members
of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, had been killed by hostile forces
while conducting "security and stability operations" in the region.
However, it has become clear that they died in a road accident.
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- A group linked with the Jordan-based terror suspect
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility yesterday for an attack on
a US military headquarters in Samarra last Thursday that killed five US
soldiers and one Iraqi National Guardsman.
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- The insurgency inside Iraq was cited by Iraqi officials
as the main reason for the cancellation of a planned first visit by the
interim Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, to Europe this week.
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- In the northern Baghdad suburb of Baqubah about 150
demonstrators took to the streets demanding the return to power of Saddam
Hussein.
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