16
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
JULY 20-JULY 26,2005
IRAQ
Violence rages in Iraq
BY QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen killed at least 24 police, soldiers and government workers in Iraq July 18, and an Iraqi general said about 50 suspected insurgents were captured in the first days of a new security operation in Baghdad.
The latest bloodshed occurred in a series of small-scale ambushes and shootings, as Baghdad received a respite July 18 from the wave of suicide bombings that killed 22 people in the embattled capital the day before.
A car bomb targeted U.S. and Iraqi troops, however, in Rawah, 175 miles northwest of Baghdad, witnesses reported. At least one person, believed to have been a civilian, was killed, the witnesses said.
The deadliest attack was in the western Baghdad district of Khadra, where eight policemen died in a gun battle with insurgents, police said. It was unclear if the insurgents suffered casualties.
Gunmen also killed at least
five other police officers, including a colonel, in attacks around the capital, police and hospital officials said. Three civilian government employees were killed in separate ambushes in Baghdad, police reported.
A policeman died in a shootout between insurgents and security forces just north of Baghdad in Taji, police said. And in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen killed a police colonel, an Interior Ministry official and three Iraqi soldiers in a series of attacks.
In the north, gunmen killed two Iraqi soldiers in eastern Mosul and assassinated Abdul-Ghani al-Naimi, whose brother is a member of the Iraqi parliament.
Baghdad. An Iraqi general, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told The Associated Press that Operation Thunder began last week on the west side of the Tigris River, which divides the city.
Also July 18, the military said a U.S. Marine died in a non-hostile incident on Sunday at a U.S. base in Ramadi. At least 1,766 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
He said about 50 suspected insurgents, including two Syrians, were captured in the opening days of the operation, which will be expanded over the next few days.
The violence came as Iraqi forces reported a new offensive against the insurgents in
On a visit to Berlin, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Richard Myers, said a recent spike in suicide bombings wouldn't derail the drafting of a constitution or progress toward democracy. But he warned of more violence ahead.
"Every major milestone has been met. That will continue, in my belief, to happen," Myers said.
Security has deteriorated steadily since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his Shiite-dominated government April 28. Most of the insurgents are Sunni Arabs, who enjoyed considerable prestige in Iraq during the rule of Saddam Hussein.
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Alaa Al-mariani/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Local Iraqis mourn over coffins of dead relatives July 18, in Najaf, 165 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. The victims were from an attack on July 16 in Musayyib, south of Baghdad, where a suicide bombing ignited a fuel truck in front of a Shiite mosque killing more than 90 people.