- BAGHDAD (AFP) - The Iraqi
capital was steeped in blood as a fledgling truce in a Shiite rebel bastion
was shattered by running battles that officials said had resulted in scores
dead, while 13 US soldiers were killed in the space of 24 hours.
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- US aircraft pounded Fallujah, west of Baghdad, late Tuesday,
and gunmen kidnapped two Italian women aid workers and two Iraqis from
their offices in Baghdad.
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- Fierce clashes raged in Sadr City, an AFP correspondent
said, with smoke billowing over parts of the over-populated Baghdad slum
and jets roared above.
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- The health ministry said 40 Iraqis were killed and more
than 270 wounded in overnight fighting between US forces and combatants
loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr.
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- Sadr aide Sheikh Naim al-Qaabi said 15 Mehdi Army fighters
were killed and 62 wounded.
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- "Last night was the most intense shelling of Sadr
City since the Americans arrived in Iraq," he said, adding that heavy
aircraft fire lasted from 11:00 pm (1900 GMT) to 4:00 am.
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- US army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton reported
several bomb and small arms attacks on US forces in Sadr City overnight
and said one US soldier was killed in an ambush there on Tuesday.
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- A second US soldier was killed by small arms in western
Baghdad, the military said.
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- The US military also reported the deaths of four other
troops in separate attacks in the Baghdad area and one north of the capital
on Monday, bringing the total number of soldiers killed to almost 1,000
since the March 2003 invasion.
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- The same day, the US military had suffered its worst
single human loss in months when a car bomb ripped through a joint convoy,
killing seven marines and three Iraqi national guards near Fallujah.
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- Suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's
group claimed the bombing, as well as the downing of a drone flying over
Fallujah, in a video obtained by AFP.
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- Tuesday's clashes marked the deadliest combat in the
Baghdad neighbourhood since April, bringing to an abrupt end a lull in
fighting between the Mehdi army and US forces that followed Sadr's call
last week for a ceasefire and pledge to join the political arena.
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- His surprise announcement came after the end of a weeks-long
standoff between US troops and Mehdi militiamen around the Imam Ali shrine
in the holy Shiite city of Najaf.
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- But negotiations to secure an agreement guaranteeing
an end to violence in Sadr collapsed last week.
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- The rebel Iraqi city of Fallujah came under heavy artillery
fire and air strikes late Tuesday, sending families fleeing. The US military
said the bombardment was in reprisal for insurgents firing on marine positions
outside the city.
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- Iraq's hostage crisis showed no signs of abating as two
female Italian aid workers, employed by the charity Un Ponte Per Baghdad
(Bridge to Baghdad), and two Iraqi relief workers were abducted by a pair
of gunmen from their Baghdad offices, a French non-governmental organisation
worker said.
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- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was due to hold
an emergency cabinet meeting in Rome following the reported kidnapping
of two Italian women.
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- Italy has around 3,000 troops stationed in Iraq.
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- For its part, the French government was frantically trying
to save two French journalists held hostage since August 20.
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- French diplomats met Tuesday with influential Sunni Muslim
clerics over the fate of Le Figaro journalist Georges Malbrunot and Radio
France Internationale correspondent Christian Chesnot.
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- And in a bizarre twist, masked members of a radical Islamic
faction called the Secret Islamic Army of Iraq urged a rival group to free
the pair, in a video obtained by AFP Tuesday.
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- Two brigades of the SIA group called on the Islamic Army
of Iraq to release the journalists "as a gesture of cooperation among
resistance groups".
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- A statement purportedly from the Islamic Army of Iraq
posted on an Islamist website on Monday gave France 48 hours to accept
three new conditions for their release: agreeing to a recent truce offer
by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, payment of five million dollars ransom
and a pledge not to get involved in Iraq.
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- In other developments, Baghdad governor Ali al-Haidri
narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, officials said.
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- The governor himself told the Al-Arabiya news channel
that two civilians were killed in the roadside bomb attack, although there
was no immediate confirmation from hospital sources.
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- In further unrest, the 19-year-old son of the governor
for the northern Iraqi province of Niniveh which includes the city of Mosul
was assassinated by unknown attackers, medical and police sources said.
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- And a Turkish truck driver was killed when insurgents
fired small arms at some petrol tankers parked outside Abbasi, about 22
kilometres (13 miles) from the rebel bastion of Samarra, police said.
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- Copyright © 2004 Agence France Presse. All rights
reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of Agence France Presse.
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