U.S.
soldiers opened sporadic fire on a number of Iraqis killing seven of
them and wounding several others after their convoy had been hit by an
explosive charge on a bridge in Fallujah, eyewitnesses told
IslamOnline.net.
The
eyewitnesses added that the U.S. convoy lost 3 of its armored
vehicles, but they gave no further details about fatalities among the
occupation forces.
More
Deaths
Moving
west, nine Iraqis, including school children, were killed Tuesday when
a car bomb exploded near a police center in Fallujah, according to
eyewitnesses.
The
center’s chief, Saad Abdul-Kerim, told IOL correspondent that a
booby-trapped car headed towards the police center and the “suicide
bomber” exploded it, killing the said Iraqi citizens.
He
said that at least three civilian cars that happened to pass in front
of the police center at the time of the explosion were destroyed,
killing at least 3 of their occupants.
Bodies
were severely charred and mutilated in the blast, which came few hours
after U.S. forces detained five people in the city of Ba’quba as
part of a massive raid that targeted northeast of Baghdad, Al-Jazeera
said.
In
a similar attack on a police center at the city of Mosul, some 420
kilometers to the north of Baghdad, killed and wounded Tuesday an
unspecified number of civilians.
Eyewitnesses
said that the police forces have managed to arrest one of the
attackers, but gave no further details.
In
another development a former Iraqi Intelligence officer called
Muthanna Al-Alousi was killed by Iraqi fighters Monday, reported Al-Zaman
newspaper Tuesday.
His
colleague Khalid Jassim, a former director at the Iraqi Intelligence,
escaped death when guerrillas attacked his house in western Baghdad
the same day, added the paper.
Baghdad
also witnessed a number of other attacks over the past 48 hours that
claimed the lives of a number of Iraqi citizens, eyewitnesses said.
They
told reporters that a market at the southern Baghdad district of
Daura, where one of Iraq’s largest oil refineries and power stations
exist, suffered an attack by three Katusha rockets that killed 7
citizens and injured a schoolgirl.
On
Monday, Baghdad witnessed one of its bloodiest days since the
U.S.-British occupation of Iraq last April, when bombers using
booby-trapped cars, rockets and mortars attacked 5 police centers,
headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross and three
ministries.
Dozens
of Iraqi schoolchildren were killed and wounded in the attacks because
their schools were situated close to the police centers targeted by
the attackers, apart from dozens of adjacent houses whose owners
suffered human and material damage.
