A rchive Date
[ 05-11-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/11/04/246678-ap.html
U.S. HQ in Iraq attacked
Tue, November 4, 2003
BAGHDAD (AP) - Insurgents struck Tuesday at the centre of the U.S.-led occupation, firing mortars after sundown at the heavily guarded district that includes major American facilities.
Three people were wounded, the Pentagon said. Spain, a close U.S. ally, withdrew many of its diplomats because of escalating violence. In a major setback to U.S. efforts to attract military help in Iraq, a Turkish official said Tuesday his country won't send peacekeeping troops without a significant change in the situation there. That makes it virtually certain the United States will have to send thousands more U.S. reservists early next year.
Huge explosions thundered throughout central Baghdad about 7:45 p.m. local time as the insurgents targeted the three-square-kilometre Green Zone, which includes coalition headquarters, the military press centre and other key facilities. Iraqi police said two mortars fell in the zone, but U.S. officials said the headquarters itself, located in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, was not damaged.
However, the huge detonation sent coalition staffers running into the hallways. It was the second mortar attack against the Green Zone in as many days.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Lt.-Col. Jim Cassella said three people were wounded in the attacks but it was unclear if they were military or civilians. Cassella said there appeared to have been three explosions, possibly from mortars or rockets.
The attack underscored the precarious security situation in the city. Late Monday, three mortars exploded in the centre of Baghdad. U.S. officials said one struck a camp of the 2nd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, which provides security in the palace district. Officials said there was no damage nor casualties.
Facing rising casualties in Iraq, President George W. Bush said in California on Tuesday that Saddam Hussein is "trying to stir up trouble" for the U.S.-led occupation but insisted the United States will track him down.
"We'll get him, we'll find him," Bush said in his most unequivocal acknowledgement the U.S. administration believes Saddam is alive and playing some sort of role in the armed opposition.
Six months after declaring an end to major combat, Bush said: "We are at war."
The deteriorating security situation in Iraq has prompted the United Nations, the international Red Cross and other international organizations to reduce their foreign staff.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said Spain will withdraw 25 of the 29-member Spanish diplomatic staff from Baghdad. Most will be relocated to Amman, Jordan. Spain has about 1,300 soldiers in Iraq and was one of the strongest supporters of the U.S.-led invasion.
"We have taken staff out of Baghdad temporarily given that it is a very complicated moment," Palacio said in Berlin. Spaniards working for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority will stay, the Spanish Defence Ministry said without giving their number. Spain became the third coalition member to withdraw diplomats from Iraq because of stepped-up insurgent attacks. Last month, Bulgaria and the Netherlands moved their diplomats to Jordan, also citing worsening security.
No additional countries have contributed forces in Iraq since the United Nations Security Council approved a new resolution last month. Bush and his administration had hoped the UN action would persuade reluctant allies to send more forces.
Turkey had been the best hope. But Turkey's ambassador to the United States, Osman Faruk Logoglu, said his country will not send troops without an explicit invitation from the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, some of whose members have vigorously opposed the idea.
There has been a dramatic escalation in attacks in Iraq, starting with the Oct. 26 missile barrage against the Al-Rasheed Hotel, where many coalition and U.S. military officials lived. One U.S. colonel was killed and 18 people were wounded.
On Sunday, guerrillas near Fallujah shot down a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter, killing 15 soldiers in the bloodiest single strike against American forces since the war began March 20.
Violence persisted Tuesday when a roadside bomb killed a 1st Armoured Division soldier and wounded two others in Baghdad. In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a hotel housing American troops but caused no casualties, the military said.
Three grenades hit the building and two others landed in the compound as U.S. forces returned fire. A police station in Mosul was also struck overnight by a rocket-propelled grenade, the military said Tuesday. There were no casualties.
Also in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, which had been relatively quiet, gunmen killed a judge near his home. Ismail Youssef, a Christian, was the second Iraqi judge assassinated in as many days.
On Monday, Judge Muhan Jabr al-Shuweily, head of an Iraqi court investigating members of Saddam's Baath party, was abducted and murdered in the southern city of Najaf. A colleague who was kidnapped with him but spared said the killers appeared to be Saddam supporters.
Elsewhere, insurgents Tuesday ambushed a U.S. patrol with rocket-propelled grenades in Khaldiyah, a town west of Baghdad in the volatile "Sunni Triangle," witnesses said. There were no reports of casualties and no confirmation from the U.S. command.
The Arabic language satellite television station Al-Jazeera reported an ambush Tuesday near Samara north of the capital and broadcast pictures of cheering Iraqis displaying American ammunition as a truck burned in the background.
U.S. troops, meanwhile, raided the village of Karasia near Tikrit late Monday, arresting two suspects and seizing Kalashnikov rifles, 14 mortar rounds, a mortar tube, and rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, the military said.
The Spanish withdrawal followed the slaying of a Spanish navy captain in the truck bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad on Aug. 19, and the Oct. 9 killing of a Spanish sergeant working for military intelligence. Security at the Spanish Embassy had been stepped up in recent weeks.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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