Iraq Mortar Attack: 5 US soldiers killed, NG-HQs Destroyed
Pakistan Times Monitoring Desk

SAMARRA (Iraq): Five US soldiers and an Iraqi were killed in a major rebel mortar attack on the national guard headquarters in this restive Iraqi city Thursday as the Turkish army warned Iraqi Kurds against trying to change the demographics of the ethnically volatile northern city of Kirkuk.

Mortar Rounds

Insurgents rained down 38 mortar rounds on the Iraqi national guard centre, destroying the building and claiming the lives of five US soldiers and one guardsman, Major Neal O'Brien of the 1st Infantry Division said.

Twenty US soldiers and three national guards were also wounded in the surprise attack, he added.

'4 Insurgents Killed'

After the shelling, fighting raged in Samarra as US troops and Iraqi guardsmen sought to lure out the rebels and an Apache helicopter fired Hellfire missiles at a building, killing four insurgents, O'Brien said.

Dozens of masked fighters armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers fanned out around the city's streets, leaving residents -- many of whom blame the US military for the unrest -- to cower in their homes.

Residents of this city, located 125 kilometres (75 miles) north of Baghdad, paid a heavy price, with the local hospital reporting dozens of casualties.

Perspective

The violence in Samarra, a bastion of the Sunni Muslim insurgency that dogged the 14-month US-led occupation, flared just one day after Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was granted wide powers to impose emergency measures to fight the insurgency that has left thousands dead.

Under the new security law, the prime minister has the right to declare a state of emergency in a limited area and for a limited time. It also grants him the right to ask judges to issue arrest warrants and impose restrictions on the movement of foreigners.
Allawi's government was set up on June 1, four weeks before the handover of power by the US-led coalition, and made tackling the insurgency its top priority.

Low-level violence raged on elsewhere with a high-ranking official from Saddam Hussein's now dissolved Baath party killed in a bomb blast in Baghdad and a national guardsman shot dead overnight.

Underscoring the bloodshed, health ministry figures revealed that 388 Iraqis have been killed and 1,680 wounded in the violence in June alone.

Kidnapping

Insurgents are also pressing a months-long kidnapping campaign, targeting foreigners in particular in a bid to pressure their governments to withdraw troop contingents or civilian contractors from Iraq.

A militant group released a videotape, broadcast on Al-Jazeera television Wednesday, threatening to behead a Philippine hostage in 72 hours unless Manila withdrew its troops.

President Gloria Arroyo responded Thursday by banning all Filipinos from travelling to Iraq, where more than 3,000 Philippine nationals are currently working for civilian contractors.

Iraq Renouncing N-Ambitions: Allawi

In a separate development, Allawi announced that Iraq was renouncing its nuclear ambitions after deposed president Saddam Hussein's regime tried for years to get the bomb.

The news followed an announcement by Washington Wednesday that it had shipped out 1.7 tonnes of enriched uranium and other radioactive materials from Iraq last month that could have been used in a so-called "dirty" bomb or a nuclear weapons program.

Allawi's office also announced that the he would visit Iran, Syria and Kuwait "in the coming days" and would hop over to London and Brussels on his first overseas tour since taking office.●