Posted on 12/03/2004 11:00:24 AM PST by yonif
Iraqi insurgents launched two major attacks Friday against a Shi'ite mosque and a police station in Baghdad, killing 30 people, including at least 16 police officers, in the deadliest insurgent attack in weeks.
US military spokesman Lt. Col. Jim Hutton said gunmen in 11 cars attacked the station with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. He said a US military Humvee was also damaged. There were no American casualties. There was no word on the insurgents' casualties.
Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Sunni rebel group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack on the police station in Baghdad's western Amil district. The claim, which appeared on an Islamic Web site, could not immediately be verified.
"The destructive effect that such operations has on the morale of the enemy inside and on its countries and people abroad is clear," the claim said.
In the attack, gunmen first shelled the police station near the dangerous road to Baghdad International Airport. Then guerrillas stormed the station, killing 16 policemen, looting weapons, releasing detainees and torching several cars, Police Capt. Mohammed al-Jumeili said. He said several policemen and detainees at the station were wounded.
Police also said a car bomb exploded at the Hameed al-Najar Shi'ite Mosque in the Baghdad neighborhood of Azamiyah, a Sunni stronghold, killing 14 people and wounding 19.
Azamiyah was a major center of Sunni support for Saddam Hussein, and the targeting of the mosque may have been a bid by Sunnis to stoke civil strife in the area. It wasn't clear who was behind the bombing.
Meanwhile, two city councilmen from Khalis were ambushed and killed by gunmen Friday, officials said. A third councilman was injured in the attack.
In Mosul, fighting began when insurgents fired several mortar rounds at a US base in Mosul, causing no damage or casualties. Iraqi and American forces went out to find the source of those attacks and came under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. Some of the gunmen took cover in a mosque that Iraqi commanders then cleared, finding stores of weapons, US military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said.
Maj. Gen. Rashid Feleih, commander of the Iraqi commandos force in Mosul, said gunmen also attacked two police stations, killing one policeman and wounding two. Police returned fire, killing at least 11 attackers and capturing three.
NATO commander Gen. James Jones, visiting Baghdad on Friday, expressed surprise at the slow pace of restoring security, saying he had believed Iraq's insurgency would have been brought under control faster than Afghanistan's.
"I am very pleased with what is going on in Afghanistan (in restoring security), but at the beginning I would have projected the opposite, with Iraq coming along faster," Jones told reporters after arriving along with NATO Secretary-General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer.
Jones urged NATO member states opposed to the US-led war in Iraq - in particular Germany and France - to join other members of the bloc in training Iraqi military forces. NATO has sent about 70 troops from Italy, Hungary, Norway and Canada to Iraq to run a training program for Iraqi security officers of the interim government's security forces.
To provide security for the election, the US government has announced it is raising troop strength in Iraq to its highest level of the war. The number of troops will climb from 138,000 now to about 150,000 by mid-January - more than in the 2003 invasion.
US senators visiting Iraq on Thursday said they were pleased with Bush's decision raising troop levels, but criticized him for not doing so earlier.
"We should have leveled with the American people in the beginning," Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, told reporters. "It was absolutely inevitable" that more troops would be needed, he said.
Huh?
They attacked a Masque? But ... I thought that "Holy Sites" were supposed to be off limits! They pitch a fit if we attack them when they're hold-up in their Holy buildings, yet they have no hesitation about attacking fellow Muslims in THEIR OWN holy buildings??
What a bunch of hypocrites.
did the iraqi police forces even fire a shot back?
these threads don't even get any posts on FR anymore, I don't think people here want to accept the truth about how things are going over there, especially with regards to the performance of the iraqi forces. these were major attacks today, Mosul was hit also.
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