BAGHDAD,
September 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Bloody clashes
erupted Saturday, September 4, between US-led forces and Iraqi
fighters in the north of the turbulent country, only hours after the
US forces raided an Iraqi army post and houses in Fallujah.
Twelve
Iraqis were killed and sixty others injured when heavy clashes erupted
Saturday in Tall Afar, west of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
"Civilians
are being brought in into the hospital. We expect the number of
casualties to increase," Reuters quoted an Iraqi doctor as
saying.
A
US UH-58 helicopter was also forced to land near Mosul with its two
crew members aboard injured, a US military spokesman said.
He
said it was not immediately clear what forced the helicopter to land.
Explosions
and exchange of fire were still raging in the city with US helicopters
hovering over the scene of the clashes.
And
in Baghdad, three mortar shells hit the Green Zone which houses the US
embassy and the Iraqi government, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.
Fallujah
Hit Again
 |
|
One
of the victims of the latest attack on Fallujah (AFP)
|
The
ongoing clashes came a day after four Iraqis were killed and six
others wounded in a US shelling of an Iraqi military camp in the
restive Iraqi city of Fallujah.
"The
shelling killed two soldiers and two civilians, and wounded six
civilians, four of them seriously," AFP quoted Doctor Nabil Nuri
of Fallujah General Hospital as saying.
A
US tank approached an Iraqi military camp near the residential area of
Shubada and opened fire at the camp.
"We
were inside the camp and we were able to see the Americans and they
could see us. All of a sudden a US tank started to fire on us,"
said First Lieutenant Ahmed Khudair.
The
US military, for its part, denied such an attack has occurred against
the Iraqi military camp.
The
US forces have been targeting Fallujah under the pretext of being a
hideout of followers of the Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who
the US forces blame for several attacks against its forces in the
war-torn country.
Twenty
Iraqis, including three children were killed and six
others injured Wednesday, September 1, in a US air strike on two
buildings in Fallujah.
Assassination
Bid
 |
|
US
forces in Iraq still face stiff resistance
|
Meanwhile,
the "Islamic Army in Iraq" claimed responsibility for the
failed assassination bid on the life of Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the
Iraqi National Congress Party and former Governing Council member.
The
militant group said in a video tape, aired by Al-Jazeera television
that it also captured a bodyguard of Chalabi and killed three of his
colleagues.
Chalabi
has said Wednesday that he escaped a failed bid on his life in which
two of his bodyguards were killed, two others wounded and another two
missing.
"I
was coming back from Najaf, where I had met with Grand Ayatollah Ali
Al-Sistani the previous day, and when we reached Latifiya, a car
started following us and opened fire on our convoy," Chalabi
said.
Chalabi,
a leading figure of the exiled opposition to Saddam Hussein before the
US-led invasion, fell
out of favor with his US protectors over suspicion of
leaking intelligence to Iran.
Since
his break with the United States and the interim government, Chalabi
has been playing up his credentials - ahead of elections due in
January 2005 - as an independent who stood up to the occupation
authorities.
