- BAGHDAD (AP) -- Two car bombs
exploded Monday near the home of a community leader outside the northern
city of Mosul, killing at least 20 people and injuring another 20, Iraqi
hospital and police officials said.
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- The explosions occurred in Tal Afar, about 80 kilometres
west of Mosul, said Khesro Goran, Mosul's deputy governor. They may have
targeted Hassan Baktash, a Shiite with close ties to the Kurdistan Democratic
Party, Mr. Goran said. He also is a party member.
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- At least 20 people were killed, said Mosul's deputy police
chief, Brig. Gen. Wathiq Mohammed, and the director of Tal Afar General
Hospital, Saleh Qaddo Haider. At least 20 people were injured, Gen. Mohammed
said.
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- Earlier, a car bomb exploded at a Baghdad restaurant
popular with police, killing at least seven people and wounding at least
82, and militants assassinated a top national security official. Five U.S.
troops were killed by roadside bombs and a vehicle accident.
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- South of Baghdad, a suicide car bomb blew up outside
a Shiite mosque shortly before evening prayers, killing at least 10 people
and injuring another 30, authorities said. The explosion occurred at 8
p.m. in front of the Abul-Fadl Abbas mosque in Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometres
south of Baghdad, Lieut. Odai al-Zayadi said.
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- Dawoud al-Tai, director of the Mahmoudiya general hospital,
said 10 bodies and 30 wounded people were brought to his facility.
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- Iraqi soldier Alaa Abdul-Mohsen said the suicide bomber
attempted to drive his explosives-packed car into the mosque, but a protective
sand barrier kept him away. Instead, the car rammed into an adjacent house
and detonated.
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- U.S. and Iraqi forces detained 300 suspected insurgents
in the biggest sweep in the capital to date.
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- The car bomb in the busy Talibia neighbourhood was detonated
outside the Habayibna restaurant at a time when police officers usually
meet there for lunch, said police Lieut. Zaid Tarek.
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- "All these people were killed for no reason. What
wrong did they do by being policemen or soldiers?" shaken restaurant
owner Mshari Hassan said shortly after the blast.
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- Casualties were taken to three Baghdad hospitals. Al-Kindi
hospital received three dead and 54 injured, according to its admission
records.
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- Another three dead and 13 injured were taken to Al-Sadr
hospital, director Rahim al-Majidi said. At least 10 more wounded were
taken to Imam Ali hospital and five to the Medical City hospital.
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- The hospitals did not say whether the dead included soldiers
or police officers.
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- Earlier, two carloads of gunmen killed Maj.-Gen. Wael
al-Rubaei, a top national security official, and his driver in Baghdad's
latest drive-by shooting.
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- Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group run by Jordanian terrorist
mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for killing Gen.
al-Rubaei in a statement posted on an Internet site used by the group.
The claim's authenticity could not be verified.
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- Gen. al-Rubaei's killing came a day after another senior
government official, Trade Ministry auditing office chief Ali Moussa, was
killed as part of an ongoing terror campaign that has killed more than
550 people in less than a month.
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- Since April 27, insurgents have targeted government and
military officials in a campaign of assassinations and kidnappings. There
have been at least 28 such incidents, including 18 assassinations, six
attempted assassinations, three kidnappings and assassinations, and one
kidnapping, according to an Associated Press count.
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- The U.S. military said Monday that three American soldiers
were killed Sunday and one was injured in two separate attacks in the northern
city of Mosul, 360 kilometres northwest of Baghdad.
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- Another two Task Force Liberty soldiers also were killed
in separate incidents Sunday. The first was killed when his patrol was
attacked with a car bomb just north of Tikrit, 130 kilometres north of
Baghdad. The other was killed in a vehicle accident near Kirkuk.
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- As of Monday, at least 1,634 members of the U.S. military
have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according
to an Associated Press count.
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- In other violence around Iraq, a suicide bomber killed
five people and injured 13 when he drove an explosives-packed pickup truck
into a crowd outside a municipal council office in Tuz Khormato, 90 kilometres
south of Kirkuk, said police commander Lt.-Gen. Sarhat Qader.
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- Another two people were killed and two were injured in
Kirkuk when a mortar round landed on a house, police Capt. Farhad Talabani
said.
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- In the former insurgent stronghold of Samarra, about
100 kilometres north of Baghdad, three suicide bombers tried to attack
an American military base, injuring three soldiers, the military said.
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- The joint offensive, dubbed Operation Squeeze Play, appeared
to be winding down Monday. It involved seven Iraqi battalions backed by
U.S. forces and was centred on western Baghdad's Abu Ghraib district, targeting
militants suspected of attacking the U.S. detention facility there and
the road linking downtown to the international airport, the military said.
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- "This is the largest combined operation with Iraqi
security forces to date," said U.S. military spokesman Lt.-Col. Clifford
Kent. "The Iraqi Security Forces have the lead in this operation while
we perform shaping and supporting roles."
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- Three Romanian journalists who had been held hostage
in Iraq for nearly two months arrived home aboard a military plane Monday,
a day after their release.
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- TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion and cameraman Sorin Miscoci,
and newspaper reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian were kidnapped in Baghdad on March
28 with their guide, American-Iraqi Mohammed Monaf. The four were freed
Sunday.
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