- Two car bombs in the city of Hillah that killed at least
23 civilians and a rocket attack that left dead two children who were playing
on the bank of the Tigris River in Baghdad have raised the political temperature
before Wednesday's transfer of sovereignty.
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- A further 58 people were injured in the blasts in Hillah,
south of Baghdad, including Noor Ahmed, a two-year-old whose right arm
had to be amputated.
-
- Yesterday's rocket attack in Baghdad, which came as President
George Bush posed for a photograph with other Nato leaders in an Ottoman
palace in Istanbul, was followed by the seizure of a US Marine. The hostage,
like three Turks whose capture was announced on Saturday, has been threatened
with beheading.
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- The cycle of violence appears to be worsening in the
run-up to the handover of sovereignty from the US-led occupation to the
interim Iraqi government on Wednesday. The toll from the Hillah bombs,
late on Saturday night, mean that more than 100 people have died and 300
been injured in bomb attacks in Baghdad and four other Iraqi cities in
the past few days.
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- Iraqi insurgents tightened their stranglehold on Baghdad
yesterday when they hit an aircraft taking off from the airport with ground
fire. It had to turn back; one person on board was killed. The attack threatens
for the first time the main lifeline to the Iraqi capital, which is already
partly cut off from the rest of the country by guerrillas in control of
the roads.
-
- The US military sought to play down the importance of
the C-130 transport plane being hit by gunfire. The military spokesman,
General Mark Kimmitt, stressed that "there was no significant damage
to the aircraft". Insurgents have tried in the past to shoot down
aircraft using the vast airport west of Baghdad but have until now failed
to kill anybody flying into or out of Baghdad. Since last November guerrillas
have had more success in shooting down US military helicopters with ground-to-air
missiles.
-
- The US military command has been surprised by the ferocity
of the co-ordinated assaults by insurgents on cities across central and
northern Iraq. The threat to Baghdad's air-link to the outside world and
the ground assault led by Islamic militants shows that the overall military
situation in Iraq is still deteriorating. American officials in Baghdad
have been trying to foster a sense that the worst of the crisis in Iraq
has now passed in the run-up to the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi
interim government.
-
- The captured marine, who is of Pakistani origin, was
seized by gunmen who said they would kill him within three days unless
Iraqi prisoners were released. "This man was taken after an attack
on a US base in Balad," said one of the masked gunmen on a tape released
last night by Arabiya television. "You must release our prisoners
held near the US base in Balad, in Dujail, in Yathrib, in Samarra and near
Abu Ghraib. You have three days from the date of this recording and after
that we will behead him. We have warned you."
-
- Militants are also threatening to behead the three Turkish
hostages tomorrow during the Nato summit. They demanded that Turkey stop
working with the US forces in Iraq.
-
- The grisly rituals surrounding the murder of foreign
hostages in Iraq are now well established. A video sent to an Arab television
station shows the three Turks kneeling in front of two black-clad gunmen.
Behind them is the black banner of the organisation led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
the Jordanian militant seen by the US as the mastermind of terror in Iraq.
-
- The Turkish government dismissed the kidnappers' demands
contemptuously, saying: "Turkey has been fighting terrorist activity
for more than 20 years."
-
- Iraqis, like many of the foreigners in their country,
are nervous as the so-called transfer of power looms. Some Baghdad businessmen
have fled to Jordan or Syria.
-
-
- The belief that insurgents will launch suicide bombers
into Baghdad as sovereignty is being transferred is widespread. In the
Iraqi capital residents say they will avoid all but the most essential
journeys over the next few days. When they do travel, they try to avoid
US or Iraqi government positions.
-
- There were also explosions yesterday in the the Green
Zone, where the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority has its headquarters.
The US army said that three mortar bombs or rockets had landed but had
caused no damage and inflicted no casualties. It is a measure of the failure
of the US army over the past year to gain military control of Iraq that
the bombardment of US headquarters in Baghdad by guerrillas is now a matter
of routine, drawing little comment.
-
- Iraqis would like the government of Iyad Allawi to succeed,
but fear that it will be a puppet of the US. Earlier this month General
Kimmitt said that for US armed forces in Iraq, all that was happening was
a change of name. "I don't think that July 1st is particularly significant
on the part of the coalition military operations, with the exception we
will now be known as the multinational forces."
-
- Seven days of bloodshed
-
- Monday, June 21: The bodies of four US soldiers are found
in Ramadi. It is unclear how they died.
-
- Tuesday: A South Korean translator being held hostage
is beheaded. A US air strike in Fallujah kills 20.
-
- Wednesday: Two Iraqi sisters working for a US firm die
in drive-by shooting in Basra.
-
- Thursday: Co-ordinated attacks on police stations and
government buildings across Iraq kill 83 and injure 324.
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- Friday: US air strikes in Fallujah kill 20.
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- Saturday: Car bombs in Hillah, south of Baghdad, kill
23 and injure 58.
-
- Sunday: Rocket attacks kill two children in Baghdad.
An aircraft taking off from Baghdad airport is hit, killing one. A US soldier
dies in attack on his Baghdad base.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=535746
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