Bombs near Baghdad Green Zone kill 15
Saturday, December 4, 2004 Posted: 5:49 AM EST (1049 GMT)
A plume of smoke is seen rising from the Green Zone, which sits on the banks of the Tigris River.
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Two powerful car bombs near one of the entrances into the coalition-controlled Green Zone in central Baghdad have killed at least 15 people and wounded 30 more.
The blasts on Saturday morning struck outside one of five checkpoint entrances into the heavily secured zone, which is home to the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy.
The checkpoint targeted is near the Assasin''s Gate entrance which is commonly used by Westerners and journalists.
Shortly after the blasts, insurgents used small arms fire to attack that checkpoint and another one. Four Iraqi police officers were among those killed.
A plume of black smoke could be seen rising from the area on the banks of the Tigris River.
The blasts are the latest in a spate of almost daily attacks staged by insurgents in a bid to to derail elections set for January.
On Friday, insurgent strikes in Baghdad, firefights in Mosul and Falluja and an ambush in Kirkuk left more than 40 people dead and many others injured.
Twenty-eight of those were in Baghdad, including 12 Iraqi police officers killed in an attack on their station, one of a wave of simultaneous attacks.
In another attack, four suicide bombers drove a minibus loaded with explosives into a northern Baghdad Shiite mosque, killing themselves and at least 14 civilians, many of whom had gathered for morning prayers.
Sabdah Kadhim, senior adviser for the Ministry of Interior, told CNN in an interview Friday that the insurgents have "become desperate."
On Thursday, the U.S. Embassy said its personnel would not be allowed to use the main road stretching from the Green Zone to Baghdad''s international airport, a stretch that has been the scene of many ambushes.
Last month, four consultants of a British-based security firm in Iraq died in a rocket attack inside the Green Zone, according to the firm, Global Risk Strategies.
Twelve other people were wounded in the attack.
Fighting flares again in Mosul
In Mosul, in what is the most significant fighting in weeks, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed at least 12 insurgents in a firefight Friday, the U.S. military said.
The U.S. military said the battle started when a U.S. patrol in western Mosul came under sustained fire in a carefully planned attack.
One of the bases insurgents used was a mosque, where the U.S. military said there were about 35 to 40 insurgents.
Last month, insurgents launched attacks against police stations and government offices in Mosul around the same time the U.S.-led offensive in Falluja took place.
Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi forces detained 53 suspected insurgents in northern Iraq, authorities said Friday.
A major cordon and search operation was conducted by several units, including the Iraqi national guard, on Thursday in the village of al-Bi''aj, located 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) east of the Syrian border, U.S. military officials said.
Al-Bi''aj is a suspected staging area for insurgent fighters in northern Iraq and foreign fighters coming from Syria.
During that operation, 46 people were detained.
Two other units detained seven people suspected of planning and conducting car bomb attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces. Those detentions came during an operation in a village northeast of Mosul, military officials said.
