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Army base workers attacked in Iraq
Assailants firing from two cars have killed up to 20 Iraqis as they were heading to work at a US military facility in the northern city of Tikrit while separate attacks killed four Iraqi security personnel in nearby towns.
Captain Bill Coppernoll, spokesman for the Tikrit-based US 1st Infantry Division, said the attackers fired from two cars at several buses carrying Iraqis working for the US-led forces that had stopped in northern Tikrit, 130km north of Baghdad.
The attack occurred at about 8.30am (0530 GMT) on Sunday.
"Two vehicles opened fire on civilian buses that had stopped to let the workers off, who were employed by coalition forces," Coppernoll said. "They were going to work."
An Iraqi journalist, Khalid Abd Allah, told Aljazeera that 15 others were injured in the attack.
Fighters opposed to the US-led government regularly target people they see as collaborating with enemy forces.
Car bomber
Elsewhere on Sunday, a bomber drove into an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint in Baiji, about 120km further north from Tikrit, detonating his explosives-packed vehicle, and killing three Iraqi National Guard soldiers and wounding 18 at about 9.30am (0630 GMT), Coppernoll said.
Gunmen opened fire on the checkpoint after the blast, Coppernoll added.
Anti-US fighters also attacked patrolling Iraqi National Guard officers near Samarra, 95km north of Baghdad, early on Sunday, killing one Iraqi soldier and wounding four.
Aljazeera has also learnt that clashes erupted on Sunday between anti-US fighters and the Iraqi National Guard in the al-Dura district of southern Baghdad. The guards launched a search campaign in the area later, to track down the fighters.
Similiar clashes also occurred in in al-Adhamiya district in central Baghdad. Details of any casualties are not yet available.
US soldiers killed
Violence this weekend has already resulted in the deaths of two US soldiers when their patrol came under attack in the northwestern city of Mosul. Four soldiers were wounded in the incident.
The soldiers, part of the US Task Force Olympia based out of Mosul, were attacked at about 3pm (1200GMT) on Saturday, according to a military statement.
The wounded soldiers were evacuated to a Mosul military hospital for treatment.
Another three US soldiers were wounded while on patrol on Saturday, but returned to duties, after their Humvee was attacked by a roadside bomb near Miqdadiya, about 90km north of Baghdad, according to 1st Infantry Division spokesman Master Sergeant Robert Powell.
Powell said a truck travelling in a US logistics convoy was struck on Saturday by another improvised explosive device near Baiji, 145km south of Mosul, killing the driver who was a third-country national. No further details were available.
Kurdish militiamen attacked
Also on Saturday, a bomber exploded his vehicle alongside a bus carrying Kurdish militiamen, killing at least nine people and wounding nine more, Kurdish officials said.
Fighters opposed to the US-led government continued their campaign against the Iraqi National Guard on Saturday, killing one officer and wounding another in Abayach, near Balad, 80km north of Baghdad, Powell added.
Mosul has witnessed a recent upturn in conflict targeting American soldiers, Iraqi security forces and Kurdish groups as anti-US forces intensify efforts to destabilise the country before planned 30 January national elections.
Hundreds of fighters are believed to have flocked there last month after US-led forces stormed the city of Falluja.
On Friday, armed men tried to seize four Mosul police stations, but were repelled, the US military said.
About 70 fighters also ambushed a US patrol with roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.
After regrouping, US and Iraqi forces struck back, killing more than two dozen fighters, the military said.
Aljazeera + Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4A3306BE-63B6-4522-B96F-B6A2F24DF1AC.htm
The attack occurred at about 8.30am (0530 GMT) on Sunday.
"Two vehicles opened fire on civilian buses that had stopped to let the workers off, who were employed by coalition forces," Coppernoll said. "They were going to work."
An Iraqi journalist, Khalid Abd Allah, told Aljazeera that 15 others were injured in the attack.
Fighters opposed to the US-led government regularly target people they see as collaborating with enemy forces.
Car bomber
Elsewhere on Sunday, a bomber drove into an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint in Baiji, about 120km further north from Tikrit, detonating his explosives-packed vehicle, and killing three Iraqi National Guard soldiers and wounding 18 at about 9.30am (0630 GMT), Coppernoll said.
Gunmen opened fire on the checkpoint after the blast, Coppernoll added.
Anti-US fighters also attacked patrolling Iraqi National Guard officers near Samarra, 95km north of Baghdad, early on Sunday, killing one Iraqi soldier and wounding four.
Aljazeera has also learnt that clashes erupted on Sunday between anti-US fighters and the Iraqi National Guard in the al-Dura district of southern Baghdad. The guards launched a search campaign in the area later, to track down the fighters.
Similiar clashes also occurred in in al-Adhamiya district in central Baghdad. Details of any casualties are not yet available.
US soldiers killed
Violence this weekend has already resulted in the deaths of two US soldiers when their patrol came under attack in the northwestern city of Mosul. Four soldiers were wounded in the incident.
The soldiers, part of the US Task Force Olympia based out of Mosul, were attacked at about 3pm (1200GMT) on Saturday, according to a military statement.
The wounded soldiers were evacuated to a Mosul military hospital for treatment.
Another three US soldiers were wounded while on patrol on Saturday, but returned to duties, after their Humvee was attacked by a roadside bomb near Miqdadiya, about 90km north of Baghdad, according to 1st Infantry Division spokesman Master Sergeant Robert Powell.
Powell said a truck travelling in a US logistics convoy was struck on Saturday by another improvised explosive device near Baiji, 145km south of Mosul, killing the driver who was a third-country national. No further details were available.
Kurdish militiamen attacked
Also on Saturday, a bomber exploded his vehicle alongside a bus carrying Kurdish militiamen, killing at least nine people and wounding nine more, Kurdish officials said.
Fighters opposed to the US-led government continued their campaign against the Iraqi National Guard on Saturday, killing one officer and wounding another in Abayach, near Balad, 80km north of Baghdad, Powell added.
Mosul has witnessed a recent upturn in conflict targeting American soldiers, Iraqi security forces and Kurdish groups as anti-US forces intensify efforts to destabilise the country before planned 30 January national elections.
Hundreds of fighters are believed to have flocked there last month after US-led forces stormed the city of Falluja.
On Friday, armed men tried to seize four Mosul police stations, but were repelled, the US military said.
About 70 fighters also ambushed a US patrol with roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.
After regrouping, US and Iraqi forces struck back, killing more than two dozen fighters, the military said.
Aljazeera + Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4A3306BE-63B6-4522-B96F-B6A2F24DF1AC.htm
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Two US soldiers were also killed and four wounded in an attack on their patrol in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Saturday, the US military said, adding that six insurgents were also killed.
At least 17 civilians working for a US contractor were killed and 13 others wounded when they were ambushed on their way to work in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown,
said US Captain Bill Coppernoll.
Insurgents in two pickups opened fire on civilian buses as they stopped to let the workers, who were employed by a US firm charged with destroying ammunition from Saddam's former regime at arms dumps just north of Tikrit.
About an hour later, three members of the Iraqi national guard, including a regional commander, were killed in a car bomb attack near the town of Baiji, 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of Tikrit, the US military and Iraqi national guard said.
The US military said 18 were also wounded when insurgents set off the car bomb and opened fire with small arms on a checkpoint near the town.
Baiji region national guard commander Mohammed Jassem was killed in the attack, said Lieutenant Abu Bakr Salim Najra.
In Samarra, south of Tikrit, one Iraqi soldier was killed and four were wounded when insurgents attacked their patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, said Coppernoll.
The US soldiers from Task Force Olympia were shot dead during an attack on their patrol in Mosul, 370 kilometers (250 miles) north of Baghdad on Saturday afternoon, the military said.
US forces have been conducting intensified operations in Mosul since coordinated attacks by insurgents on the city's police stations prompted most of the force to quit on November 11.
In Saturday's incidents, insurgents fired rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire on the patrol from buildings in the Palestine neighborhood of the city, including mosques, the US military said.
"Soldiers entered the mosque and found an arms cache, including AK-47 (machine guns), rocket-propelled grenades, grenades and ammunition," said US Sergeant Joseph Sanchez.
"Six anti-Iraqi forces were killed and three detained," he said.
Another mosque was raided overnight, according to its Sunni Muslim imam, who said the troops destroyed a surrounding wall but did not make any arrests.
However, the US military denied it had carried out any operations on a mosque during the night.
On Sunday, men carrying small arms and rocket-propelled grenades gathered at the mosque shouting anti-American slogans, said an AFP correspondent.
http://news.inq7.net/world/index.php?index=1&story_id=20356
Insurgents have launched a series of attacks in Sunni areas since Friday, mainly targeting Iraqi security forces and civilians working with the U.S. military.
The U.S. 1st Infantry Division said on Sunday gunmen in two cars opened fire on two civilian buses carrying Iraqis to work at an arms dump outside Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit on Sunday, killing 17 Iraqis and wounding 13 others.
A suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle beside a National Guard convoy in the rebel stronghold of Baiji, north of Tikrit, killing local National Guard commander Mohammed Jassim Rumaied and three of his bodyguards, colleagues said.
And later on Sunday, gunmen killed two National Guards and wounded four others in an attack near Latifiya, a town south of Baghdad that has seen persistent unrest, officials said.
On Saturday, a suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Kurdish peshmerga fighters in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, killing 16 people, Kurdish officials said. The peshmerga have been helping secure Mosul since most of the city's police fled after an insurgent onslaught last month.
Two suicide bombers also struck at a police station just outside the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on Saturday, killing seven people and wounding more than 50.
On Friday, a suicide bomb outside a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad killed 14, and 11 Iraqi police were killed in a guerrilla assault on a police station in the capital.
At least six U.S. troops have also been killed since Friday.
Two were killed in an ambush in Mosul on Saturday, two by separate roadside bombs earlier in the day, and two Marines were killed by a suicide car bomb at the Jordanian border on Friday.
The surge in violence has fuelled fears that Iraq's first democratic elections in decades, scheduled for end-January, could be derailed by guerrilla attacks and intimidation.
There even continues to be unrest in Falluja, a city west of Baghdad that U.S. forces invaded last month to quash insurgents who had been holed up there for months. The plan was to pacify and start rebuilding the community in time for the January poll.
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society, which entered Falluja late last month to help with relief efforts in the shattered city, withdraw on Sunday due to the dangers of operating, with rebels and U.S. forces still clashing in several areas.
The Red Crescent was the only aid agency in Falluja.
ELECTION FEARS
Over the past year, U.S. authorities have invested heavily in recruiting and training the military-style National Guard and police ahead of elections, only to see large numbers desert or not turn up to work in the face of insurgent intimidation.
The U.S. military hopes to be able to hand over national security to Iraqi forces before the elections, and Iraqi officials say only Iraqi forces will be involved in securing polling booths, with U.S.-led troops keeping their distance.
But insurgents still dominate several Sunni areas of Iraq, and the Pentagon has announced it will deploy an additional 12,000 U.S. troops in coming weeks for election security, boosting troop numbers to 150,000, their highest level yet.
Many among Iraq's 20 percent Sunni Arab minority -- from which the insurgency draws the core of its support -- have called for a delay in the elections, saying that violence in Sunni areas will prevent the polls being free and fair.
Sunni Arabs, who dominated Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule, fear they will be marginalised in the new Iraq, as the 60 percent Shi'ite majority exercises its new political clout.
Shi'ites insist the elections should go ahead on time and that any delay would be a surrender to terrorism.
Lakhdar Brahimi, former U.N. special envoy to Iraq and the architect of January's electoral process, told a Dutch newspaper on Saturday the elections should not go ahead if the current violent environment persists.
"Elections are no magic potion, but part of a political process. They must be prepared well and take place at the right time to produce the good effects that you expect from them," Brahimi told NRC Handelsblad.
Asked if it was possible to hold elections as conditions are now, Brahimi said: "If the circumstances stay as they are, I personally don't think so."
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=633312