Dozens Die Ahead Of Iraqi Power Transfer

BAGHDAD – At least 66 people were reported killed as US forces reacted to an intensifying and apparently coordinated wave of attacks on four Iraqi cities Thursday, less than a week before the June 30 transfer of power to a transitional government.

US marines said a Cobra helicopter was shot down in a second day of clashes near Fallujah, 50 kilometres west of the capital, Baghdad, where the US army said it killed 20 foreign fighters on Wednesday. The bloodiest clashes yesterday were in Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, where the US army said it lost two servicemen in fighting with suspected supporters of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a fugitive leader of the al Qaeda terror network who has declared war on the interim government.The army said it dropped four 220 kilogramme bombs in what its spokesman, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, described as a “precision” strike on three houses in Baquba.Local hospital sources said that 17 Iraqis, including 11 police, were killed and 26 were wounded in the fighting.The US military, which had previously forecast mounting attacks on the interim government led by Iyad Allawi, said Zarqawi’s supporters launched simultaneous attacks Thursday on local government headquarters, a police station and the house of the provincial police chief in Baquba.Another seven Iraqis and a US soldier were killed in a series of car bomb attacks on five police stations in the northern city of Mosul.Police captain Wadi Mohammed Abdullah said US army helicopters fired on insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs.A US military statement later said coalition-backed Iraqi security forces had regained control of a police station that had been taken over by insurgents.Four members of the Iraqi National Guard were killed and three wounded when a man disguised as a police officer blew himself up Thursday outside a control post southwest of Baghdad, an official from the paramilitary force said.Another would-be suicide bomber was shot dead by a policeman in Ramadi, 120 kilometres west of here, before he could plant a suitcase bomb in front of a police station, a witness said.”This morning we started seeing simultaneous attacks in different cities,” a senior US-led coalition military official told reporters here on condition of anonymity.”We have said for a long period of time that we speculate there is a loose coordination going on here… We suspect that these were coordinated attacks, simultaneous attacks,” he noted.But he tried to play down the importance of the attacks, saying:”What they are tring to do is not hold up a police station, they are trying to get the symbolic effect of being able to go to a democratic institution… make a bang, make a show and then run away.”On Wednesday, a voice purporting to be that of Zarqawi pronounced a death sentence on Allawi in an audiotape posted on an Islamist website.”Allawi… you have escaped many times, without knowing it, from well-organised ambushes that we laid,” it said.”But we pledge to go all the way without giving up so that you will meet the same fate as Ezzedine Salim,” head of the now dissolved Governing Council, who was assassinated in a Baghdad suicide car bombing May 17.The United States, meanwhile, swore in veteran diplomat John Negroponte as its ambassador to Iraq under the new government, which will formally assume sovereignty next week.Negroponte, who is being transferred to Baghdad from his post as US ambassador to the United Nations in New York, will replace Paul Bremer, as the top US civilian official in Iraq.Bremer’s agency, the occupying power, the Coalition Provisional Authority, will cease to exist at the moment of transition.As one of his last acts in office, Bremer is expected to issue an order extending for several months the immunity from prosecution enjoyed by troops and personnel in the US-led occupation force in Iraq, The Washington Post said Thursday.US officials in Baghdad have been negotiating the terms of the immunity all week with Allawi and his national security adviser Mowaffak Rubaie, and it is hoped an agreement can be reached before US President George W.Bush leaves for the NATO summit in Istanbul on Friday, the daily said.On Wednesday, the United States abandoned an attempt in the United Nations Security Council to secure another one-year renewal of immunity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.Officials in Washington said the Bush administration wanted to spare Allawi’s government from having to grant a blanket waiver as one of its first acts, a move that could undermine its credibility as it assumes power.But they conceded that extending the immunity by US fiat could create the impression that the United States is not turning over full power to the new Iraqi government and giving itself special privileges.- Nampa-APThe bloodiest clashes yesterday were in Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, where the US army said it lost two servicemen in fighting with suspected supporters of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a fugitive leader of the al Qaeda terror network who has declared war on the interim government.The army said it dropped four 220 kilogramme bombs in what its spokesman, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, described as a “precision” strike on three houses in Baquba.Local hospital sources said that 17 Iraqis, including 11 police, were killed and 26 were wounded in the fighting.The US military, which had previously forecast mounting attacks on the interim government led by Iyad Allawi, said Zarqawi’s supporters launched simultaneous attacks Thursday on local government headquarters, a police station and the house of the provincial police chief in Baquba.Another seven Iraqis and a US soldier were killed in a series of car bomb attacks on five police stations in the northern city of Mosul.Police captain Wadi Mohammed Abdullah said US army helicopters fired on insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs.A US military statement later said coalition-backed Iraqi security forces had regained control of a police station that had been taken over by insurgents.Four members of the Iraqi National Guard were killed and three wounded when a man disguised as a police officer blew himself up Thursday outside a control post southwest of Baghdad, an official from the paramilitary force said.Another would-be suicide bomber was shot dead by a policeman in Ramadi, 120 kilometres west of here, before he could plant a suitcase bomb in front of a police station, a witness said.”This morning we started seeing simultaneous attacks in different cities,” a senior US-led coalition military official told reporters here on condition of anonymity.”We have said for a long period of time that we speculate there is a loose coordination going on here… We suspect that these were coordinated attacks, simultaneous attacks,” he noted.But he tried to play down the importance of the attacks, saying:”What they are tring to do is not hold up a police station, they are trying to get the symbolic effect of being able to go to a democratic institution… make a bang, make a show and then run away.”On Wednesday, a voice purporting to be that of Zarqawi pronounced a death sentence on Allawi in an audiotape posted on an Islamist website.”Allawi… you have escaped many times, without knowing it, from well-organised ambushes that we laid,” it said.”But we pledge to go all the way without giving up so that you will meet the same fate as Ezzedine Salim,” head of the now dissolved Governing Council, who was assassinated in a Baghdad suicide car bombing May 17.The United States, meanwhile, swore in veteran diplomat John Negroponte as its ambassador to Iraq under the new government, which will formally assume sovereignty next week.Negroponte, who is being transferred to Baghdad from his post as US ambassador to the United Nations in New York, will replace Paul Bremer, as the top US civilian official in Iraq.Bremer’s agency, the occupying power, the Coalition Provisional Authority, will cease to exist at the moment of transition.As one of his last acts in office, Bremer is expected to issue an order extending for several months the immunity from prosecution enjoyed by troops and personnel in the US-led occupation force in Iraq, The Washington Post said Thursday.US officials in Baghdad have been negotiating the terms of the immunity all week with Allawi and his national security adviser Mowaffak Rubaie, and it is hoped an agreement can be reached before US President George W.Bush leaves for the NATO summit in Istanbul on Friday, the daily said.On Wednesday, the United States abandoned an attempt in the United Nations Security Council to secure another one-year renewal of immunity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.Officials in Washington said the Bush administration wanted to spare Allawi’s government from having to grant a blanket waiver as one of its first acts, a move that could undermine its credibility as it assumes power.But they conceded that extending the immunity by US fiat could create the impression that the United States is not turning over full power to the new Iraqi government and giving itself special privileges.- Nampa-AP