- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents
killed 75 people on Thursday in a wave of attacks across Iraq aimed at
sabotaging the handover to Iraqi rule in six days' time.
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- Guerrillas struck in Baquba, Falluja, Ramadi, Mosul and
Baghdad, wounding more than 250 people in an intensification of a bloody
campaign by Iraqi rebels and foreign militants. Three U.S. soldiers were
killed.
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- In Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, multiple car bombings
on police buildings rocked the city, killing at least 44 people and wounding
216, the Health Ministry said.
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- Fighting in Anbar province, which includes Falluja and
Ramadi in the Sunni Muslim heartlands of central Iraq, killed at least
nine people and wounded 27, the ministry said.
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- At least seven large explosions shook Mosul and local
television ordered residents to stay at home. Police blocked all major
roads and announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
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- Apart from the Iraqi casualties, the U.S. military said
an American soldier had been killed and three wounded in the blasts. It
said a security guard was also killed.
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- Gunfire rattled across Mosul as insurgents fought running
battles with U.S. troops and Iraqi police.
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- Four Iraqi national guardsmen were killed and two civilians
wounded by a car bomb blast in southern Baghdad, an officer in the force
said. Hospital staff put the death toll at five.
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- ZARQAWI'S FINGERPRINTS
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- Scores of black-clad gunmen, some claiming loyalty to
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, attacked a police station and
other government buildings in Baquba, 40 miles northwest of Baghdad, in
a dawn assault.
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- It appeared to be the first time members of Zarqawi's
underground network had surfaced in street combat.
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- Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said he believed Ansar
al-Islam, a group previously linked to Zarqawi, was behind the Mosul bombings.
But he blamed Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein for the attacks in Ramadi
and Baquba.
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- The U.S. Army said two soldiers had been killed and seven
wounded in an ambush in Baquba that involved roadside bombs as well as
small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire.
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- The Health Ministry said 13 people had been killed and
15 wounded in the mixed Sunni-Shi'ite town.
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- U.S. air strikes destroyed three buildings that guerrillas
were using to fire on 1st Infantry Division soldiers and Iraqi security
forces near Baquba's sports stadium.
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- Many of the fighters wore yellow headbands bearing the
name of a Muslim militant group "Saraya al-Tawhid and Jihad"
(Battalions of Unification and Holy War). They handed out leaflets warning
Iraqis not to "collaborate" with Americans.
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- "The flesh of collaborators is tastier than that
of Americans," the leaflets said.
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- Zarqawi's Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad group has claimed
responsibility for many attacks in Iraq, including this week's beheading
of a South Korean hostage.
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- Witnesses said an Iraqi hospital director and his driver
were killed on a road near Baquba. A police car burned nearby.
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- In Ramadi, insurgents fired mortars at two police stations
and the house of a security official in Ramadi, about 70 miles west of
Baghdad. They also clashed with U.S. troops.
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- The U.S. military said seven Iraqi police and 12 insurgents
had been killed in the fighting.
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- AIR STRIKES IN FALLUJA
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- Fierce clashes raged for two hours in Falluja where U.S.
Marines called in air strikes by planes and helicopters on guerrilla targets
in the rebellious town west of Baghdad.
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- A U.S. Cobra helicopter was shot down during the Falluja
fighting but the crew walked away unhurt, Marines said.
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- Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations
for the U.S. army in Iraq, said clashes in a number of Iraqi cities had
subsided by noon.
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- Iraq's fledgling security forces, the main target of
the violence, are crucial to the interim government's prospects for imposing
order after the June 30 handover.
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- NATO leaders are likely to agree to a request from Allawi
to train Iraqi forces when they meet in Istanbul next week, NATO Secretary-General
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Reuters.
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- Eight British servicemen were freed on Thursday after
three nights in Iranian hands, ending a wrangle that had threatened to
inflame tensions over Britain's presence in Iraq.
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