I was thinking the same thing!
November 15 2004 at 04:49PM
By Faris Mehdawi
Baquba, Iraq - US forces launched air strikes and fought gunbattles after insurgents overran police stations and other areas in the Iraqi city of Baquba on Monday, killing about 20 rebels, the US military said.
Explosions and gunfire echoed across Baquba, 65km north-east of the capital, as US and Iraqi forces battled to restore order after insurgents attacked a police station and US troops at a traffic circle, witnesses said.
Another police station in the town of Buhriz, just south of Baquba, was also attacked.
US planes dropped two 500-pound bombs on Baquba US planes dropped two 500-pound bombs on Baquba after at least 15 rebels arrived by bus from outside the city and joined other militants in carrying out attacks.
Some fighters positioned themselves on a rooftop, others set up road blocks and planted roadside bombs, US military spokesperson Captain Bill Coppernoll said.
About 20 insurgents were killed in the gunbattles, artillery and air strikes. Four US soldiers were wounded, Coppernoll said, two of them seriously.
A doctor at Baquba hospital said at least eight people had been brought in dead from the fighting, including one police officer. Eleven people came in wounded, among them three police officers.
The surge in violence coincides with a week-old US-led offensive against foreign fighters, Sunni nationalists and Saddam Hussein loyalists entrenched in Fallujah.
Violence has spread across Iraq's central Sunni heartland Military officials say many militants fled Fallujah, west of the capital, before the full-scale attack, and there has been a spike in violence throughout Iraq's Sunni Muslim region since.
Abdullah Jibouri, governor of Diyala province, said order had been restored to Baquba, the provincial capital.
"The situation in the city is normal now," Jibouri told Reuters by telephone. "The Iraqi National Guard and police are in control."
Earlier in the day, gunmen stormed the police station in the nearby town of Buhriz using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, police said. A gunbattle ensued and four police cars were burned, police said.
Insurgents hijacked two of the hospital's ambulances during the unrest, the doctor said. He did not know what happened to the drivers and paramedics.
Hundreds of people took to the streets in the northeast of the city, protesting against the US-backed local government and calling for US forces to leave Iraq, witnesses said.
US soldiers had earlier come under fire from a mosque in the city, Coppernoll said. Iraqi police searched the surrounding area and found a cache of weapons including rocket-propelled grenades and launchers and mortars.
Violence has spread across Iraq's central Sunni heartland since the start of the assault on Fallujah.
Explosions and sporadic gunfire rang out across Mosul on Monday, a day after Iraqi and US troops battled to retake a police station overrun by insurgents. Violence has also spiked in
Oh, they don't. You should see how they load cargo on trucks (and drive them around) or how they use cranes to offload large things like trailers.
An OSHA type would freak!