A rchive Date
[ 25-04-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2004/04/23/433729-ap.html
Blasts rock Iraq oil terminals
BAGHDAD (AP) - Suicide attackers detonated explosive-laden boats near oil facilities in the Persian Gulf on Saturday, killing two U.S. navy sailors in a new tactic against Iraq's vital oil industry.
Elsewhere, violence across Iraq killed at least 33 Iraqis and four U.S. soldiers.
It was the first such maritime attack against oil facilities since U.S. troops invaded Iraqi more than a year ago. The blasts resembled attacks in 2000 and 2002 - blamed on al-Qaida - against the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 U.S. sailors and a tanker crewman.
In the attack, three dhows, or small boats, drew close to two major oil terminals in Gulf waters about 160 kilometres from Iraq's main port Umm Qasr and exploded when coalition craft tried to intercept them. A U.S. navy craft was flipped by the blast, killing the U.S. sailors and injuring five others, the military said.
Initial reports said there was no damage to the terminals and Iraq's main southern oil outlet Umm Qasr remained open, a British spokesman said.
The Gulf bombings came on a day of multiple attacks in Iraq: the deadliest was a roadside bomb that hit a bus south of Baghdad, killing at least 13 Iraqis. A mortar barrage struck a crowded market in the capital's biggest Shiite Muslim neighbourhood, Sadr City, killing at least seven.
The U.S. soldiers were killed around dawn, when two rockets were fired from a truck and slammed into the base in Taji, 20 kilometres north of Baghdad, the military said. U.S. helicopter gunships then destroyed the truck. Seven soldiers were wounded, three of them critically, the military said.
Also, a U.S. army reservist missing in Iraq since a convoy attack April 9 was confirmed dead. The remains of Sgt. Elmer Krause, 40, were found Friday, said a statement Saturday from the U.S. Department of Defence. It gave no other details. Another soldier and a U.S. contract worker abducted in the same attack remain unaccounted for.
The latest deaths, along with the combat death of a marine announced Saturday, brought to 109 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April. The military also announced the death of a soldier in a non-combat incident, bringing to 718 the number servicemembers who have died in the country.
Anywhere from 900 to 1,200 Iraqis have been killed in April - depending on various reports of the death toll from Fallujah.
The violence came as U.S. commanders repeated warnings they may launch a new assault on the besieged city Fallujah soon, saying guerrillas had not abided by a call to surrender their heavy weapons.
Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, travelled to the marine base outside Fallujah for consultations Saturday, while Brig.-Gen. Mark Kimmitt said: "Should there not be a good faith effort demonstrated by the belligerents inside Fallujah, the coaltiion is prepared to act."
President George W. Bush held a conference call Saturday with his senior national security and military advisers to discuss the situation in Iraq, particularly Fallujah, a senior defence official said.
The official said the purpose of the teleconference was mainly for Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, to give Bush and others an update on the situation inside the city and the U.S. marines' readiness to resume offensive operations against thousands of insurgents holed up there.
The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was not clear when Abizaid would determine time has run out on efforts to achieve a peaceful end to the Fallujah standoff. He said Abizaid has the marines "ready to go" back on the offensive at any time.
The New York Times newspaper reported in its Sunday editions that Bush and his senior advisers are expected to decide this weekend whether to invade Fallujah, even at the risk of stirring additional resentment by Iraqis in other areas.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy confirmed the president, spending the weekend at Camp David, Md., was given his daily national security briefing Saturday but noted neither the agenda nor the contents of those briefings are made public.
"I can't say anything about what was discussed, but the president did have his daily briefing," Duffy said.
The senior defence official, who did not participate in the briefing but knew of it, said his impression was that it was not a decision-making session but essentially an opportunity for Abizaid to update Bush and his top aides about the military situation in Iraq in general and specifically regarding Fallujah.
The official said it was his impression the president showed no inclination to override the advice of his senior military staff on the decision.
Wrapping up a day of campaigning and fund-raising Friday in Florida before flying to Camp David, Bush said: "America will never be run out of Iraq by a bunch of thugs and killers."
In Saturday's bloodiest incident in Iraq, a bomb exploded on a main road as a bus passed near Haswa, 50 kilometres south of Baghdad. The back of the bus was shredded and seats crumpled. At least 13 people - including a four-year-old boy - were killed and 17 wounded, said Wasan Nasser, a doctor at Iskan Hospital in neighbouring Iskandariyah.
In Sadr City, the capital's sprawling Shiite slum, angry residents vented anger at Iraq's U.S. occupiers after the mortar attacks, which followed an early-morning clash in the neighbourhood between U.S. troops and militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Some of the mortar shells in Saturday's barrage against Sadr City, which killed at least seven people, hit three kilometres from any U.S. position.
Three shells pounded into the neighbourhood's main souk, known as the Chicken Market, just as morning crowds were gathering to shop. Human flesh could be seen among scattered market stalls and burned-out cars. Craters were blasted out of the asphalt.
At least six Iraqis were killed and 38 wounded, said Yassin Abdel-Qader, a doctor in the area's Health Directorate. The Baghdad slum is home to more than one million people.
Hours later, a projectile struck a two-storey house, smashing through its roof and down into the ground floor, tearing a woman to pieces as she took an afternoon nap and wounding her daughter. At least two more landed later in the afternoon, hitting a main street on the edge of Sadr City, breaking windows but causing no casualties.
Before the mortar fire, U.S. troops launched a pre-dawn raid into Sadr City, pursuing al-Sadr militiamen. They did not capture the targets they sought but were caught in a gunbattle in which two Iraqis were killed, said U.S. Maj. Phil Smith.
During the fighting, a shell pierced the wall of a house, exploding in a bedroom and severely burning a nine-year-old girl and two teenaged girls as they slept.
Kimmitt suggested former members of captive Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's security services were to blame.
"It was clearly an attack on civilians. There was no U.S. military at that spot," said Lt.-Col. James Hutton of the army's 1st Cavalry Division, which responded to the attack and helped treat the wounded.
But angry Shiites blamed the Americans for the assault.
After one of the afternoon strikes, residents chanted: "Long live al-Sadr, America and the Govering Council are infidels."
In other violence Saturday:
- An Iraqi woman working as a translator for the U.S. military was shot and killed with her husband as they drove to a U.S. base, a hospital official said.
- A roadside bomb went off, detroying a car carrying Iraqis near a U.S. base on a downtown street in the northern city Tikrit, hometown of Saddam and a centre for anti-U.S. resistance. Four Iraqis - two police and two civilians - were killed and 16 people were wounded, the U.S. military said.
- Polish troops clashed overnight with Shiite militiamen in Karbala, killing five, a spokesman for the multinational peacekeeping force in south-central Iraq said Saturday. A day earlier, followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr attacked Bulgarian troops in the city, killing one soldier.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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