- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Two
suicide bombers killed five people, including three U.S. nationals, on
Thursday in one of the bloodiest attacks inside Baghdad's fortified Green
Zone, and America's top enemy in Iraq claimed responsibility.
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- The audacious attacks on a souvenir bazaar and a cafe
frequented by U.S. troops and civilians were the first suicide bombings
inside what is supposed to be the safest place in Iraq.
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- A U.S. military official said 18 people were wounded
in the blasts, including three U.S. military personnel and a U.S. civilian.
He did not give the nationalities of the other casualties. All three
Americans
killed were civilians.
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- The military had earlier put the toll at eight
dead.
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- The sprawling Green Zone, in Saddam Hussein's former
presidential compound, houses government offices and the U.S. and British
embassies. It is protected by towering concrete blast walls and U.S. troops
in sandbagged posts.
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- Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed
responsibility for the attacks, a statement on a Web site said.
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- "Two lions from the Tawhid and Jihad group's
Martyrdom
Brigade managed to get inside ... the Green Zone," it said, calling
it one of the group's most successful operations.
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- A U.S. spokeswoman said the bombs both appeared to have
been hand-carried. Earlier this month a bomb was defused at the same Green
Zone cafe targeted in Thursday's attack.
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- A roadside bomb blast killed one U.S. soldier and wounded
two in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The death took the U.S.
combat toll to 824 since last year's invasion.
-
- Seven U.S. soldiers have been killed by roadside blasts
and a suicide bombing in Iraq since Tuesday evening.
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- West of Baghdad, U.S. warplanes struck at targets in
the rebel-held city of Falluja, killing five people, one of them a
13-year-old
boy, and wounding 12, hospital doctors said.
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- The U.S. military said the raid was the latest of a
series
of strikes against sites used by Zarqawi militants.
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- "Coalition forces struck two Abu Musab al Zarqawi
sites, a weapons transload and storage site in southern Fallujah, and a
Zarqawi terrorist network safe house located in the Jolan district of
Fallujah,"
said a military statement.
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- FALLUJA ULTIMATUM
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- The latest raid came a day after Iraq's interim Prime
Minister Iyad Allawi threatened military action against Falluja unless
the city hands over Zarqawi and his group.
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- Falluja representatives said they had no evidence that
Zarqawi was in the city and voiced dismay at Allawi's ultimatum.
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- "Where is this Zarqawi that Allawi is talking about?
Let him come and show us where Zarqawi is," yelled one furious
resident
standing in the debris after the bombing. "These are
homes."
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- Falluja, a bastion of Sunni resistance for the past 17
months, has been in the hands of battle-hardened insurgents since a failed
assault by U.S. marines in April.
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- The United States has offered a $25 million bounty for
Zarqawi, saying he has links to al Qaeda and accusing him of orchestrating
some of Iraq's deadliest suicide bombings.
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- In the northern city of Mosul, a roadside bomb killed
a civilian and wounded six Iraqi National Guards and a car blew up near
a U.S. military convoy, police and hospital sources said.
-
- Gunmen killed a woman journalist, Dina Hassan, and a
judge in separate attacks in Baghdad, interior ministry spokesman Adnan
Abdel Rahman said. Two senior Iraqi army officers were shot dead in Baquba,
north of the capital, a colleague said.
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- Police in Kirkuk said they had found the beheaded body
of a man believed to have been working for U.S.-led forces. The body was
dumped in Zab, 85 km (53 miles) southwest of Kirkuk.
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- Gunmen kidnapped two Turkish and two Iraqi truck drivers
in separate ambushes near Samarra, north of Baghdad, police said.
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- An Iraqi militant group said it had beheaded a kidnapped
Turkish driver for cooperating "with the occupying Crusaders."
The Army of Ansar al-Sunna showed the unidentified driver's killing in
a video posted on the Internet.
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- Last week Zarqawi's group beheaded a British hostage
after earlier decapitating two Americans seized with him in Baghdad.
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- Violence has blighted postwar reconstruction efforts
and cast doubt on whether the elections can go ahead on time.
-
- Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar told the Arabic Asharq
al-Awsat
daily the election deadline of Jan. 31 was not sacrosanct and could be
changed to ensure free and comprehensive polls.
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- But Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, a spokesman for top Shi'ite
cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said the polls must go ahead on time to
improve security and political conditions.
-
- In Tokyo, international donors to Iraq wrapped up a
two-day
meeting agreeing that they need to speed up the allocation of promised
reconstruction funds.
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- - With reporting by Luke Baker in Baghdad, Fadel
al-Badrani,
Maher al-Thanoon in Mosul, Faris al-Mahdawi in Baquba, Miral Fahmy in Dubai
and Elaine Lies in Tokyo
-
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