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| Iraq-Jordan |
| 20 dead in Iraqi suicide bombing |
| 2004-10-24 |
| Suicide bombers killed 20 members of Iraq's fledgling security forces near a US marine base west of Baghdad and at a checkpoint to the north today amid a spate of insurgent attacks across the country. The surge in violence underlined the scale of the task facing the US military and Iraqi interim government, which have sworn to quell rebels ahead of elections due in January. Hospital officials said 16 Iraqi police were killed and up to 40 people wounded by the morning suicide bomb at an Iraqi police post near the marine base west of Baghdad. Another suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a checkpoint manned by Iraqi National Guards in the village of Ishaqi, near Samarra, north of Baghdad, killing four guards. A guard officer said six guards were also wounded in the attack. Police said a policeman was killed by a roadside bomb in Samarra town. There was no let up in violence elsewhere across the Sunni Arab heartland of central Iraq. Rebels killed two Turkish truck drivers and wounded two in a convoy attack near the northern city of Mosul, police said. Six US soldiers were wounded when their armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb on a highway leading to Baghdad airport. Insurgents also fired two mortar rounds in central Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding one, witnesses said. But the US military said it had captured a lieutenant of its top foe in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and five other suspects in an overnight raid on what it said was a hideout of the Jordanian militant's network in southern Fallujah. US forces earlier launched an airstrike on the rebel-held militant stronghold, killing two people and wounding three. US troops did not name the man or give his nationality, but said he had once been viewed as a minor Zarqawi operative. "However, due to a surge in the number of Zarqawi associates who have been captured or killed by (US) strikes and other operations, the member had moved up to take a critical position as a Zarqawi senior leader," the statement said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |