Posted on 12/08/2004 9:59:53 AM PST by crushelits
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Insurgents launched a string of assaults around the city of Samarra (search) on Wednesday, trading gunfire with U.S. forces, attacking a U.S. convoy, and blowing up a police station after looting its armory, officials said. The violence came as Britain's defense minister visited British troops in Basra (search), to the south.
The violence in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, killed four Iraqis and wounded several others. It demonstrated that the insurgents still remain a force in a city despite a large-scale operation launched by American forces there several months ago.
British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon (search) was to meet with soldiers at several bases around Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, and with some of Britain's 9,000 troops who recently returned from a mission in central Iraq in support of U.S.-led efforts to clear insurgents from a wide swathe of territory south of Baghdad, spokesman Maj. David Gibb said.
Hoon discussed preparations for next month's elections in talks with Basra's governor, Hassan al-Rashid, during his one-day visit. He said his government was not planning to send more soldiers to Iraq ahead of the polls.
"His visit is sending a major political message to the Iraqi people and the regional states that a senior British politician is supporting not just the military operations in the country but also the political process and the rebuilding of Iraq as it moves toward the establishment of a new government after the Jan. 30 elections," Gibb said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
No, all it demonstrates is that some hoodlums can get together and kill more Iraqis. What the media does not understand, is that this is possible in any country, no matter how stable it is. We just need to kill all the people that think they are justified in taking innocent lives.
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