Five US troops, Iraqi guard killed
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi insurgents detonated a car bomb and then hammered a military headquarters in the city of Samarra with a mortar barrage yesterday, leveling the building and killing five US soldiers and an Iraqi guardsman, the US military said.
American troops, backed by attack helicopters, then fanned out through the city to hunt down the attackers in clashes that lasted into the late afternoon. Tanks deployed in the streets; smoke rose above a mosque.
The violence also killed three civilians, medical officials said. As many as 44 people were wounded, including 20 US soldiers and four Iraqi guardsmen, the military and hospital officials said.
A witness, Khalid Salih, said the gate of the headquarters building shared by US forces and their Iraqi national guard allies was open when a sport utility vehicle rigged with a bomb drove in.
"I saw a GMC enter the base and immediately explode," he said.
Insurgents then launched 38 mortar rounds at the headquarters, destroying the building, said Major Neal O'Brien, spokesman for the First Infantry Division.
About 25 minutes after the mortar attack -- once radar determined where it had originated -- US soldiers responded with four mortar rounds of their own.
American troops moved through the streets to flush out the insurgents, and four fighters shot at the soldiers before taking refuge in a building, O'Brien said. US helicopters attacked with Hellfire missiles, killing the four fighters.
Helicopter gunships also were used in Samarra about a week before the United States handed power to Iraq's interim government June 28. The city is part of the Sunni Triangle, where support for Saddam Hussein's fallen regime had been strong.
Iraqi insurgents in the area often launch mortar and rocket attacks on US bases. A rocket attack last month on a logistics base near Balad killed three US soldiers and wounded 25 people.
Before the attack yesterday, a US military convoy in Samarra was targeted by a roadside bomb that wounded a US soldier, O'Brien said.
Early today, two unidentified Bulgarians were shown handcuffed in a videotape broadcast on Arab television, and a group loyal to insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened to execute them if the US military did not release all Iraqi detainees within 24 hours. The Tawhid and Jihad group sent the Al-Jazeera satellite network a video showing the Bulgarians flanked by three masked men, two carrying rifles and one carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. On the wall behind them was their group's black flag with a golden circle.
The group claimed responsibility for the beheading of US businessman Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun Il. It also was thought to be responsible for a series of attacks on police and security forces in Iraq that killed 100 people in the days leading up to the coalition forces' handover of power to an Iraqi interim government last month.
Late yesterday, four large explosions were heard at an Iraqi base in the town of Mishahda, 25 miles north of Baghdad. Volleys of gunfire broke out afterward. US military officials had no comment late yesterday.
In another attack, gunmen along the road from Samarra to Balad strafed a truck, killing two Turkish drivers and causing the vehicle to flip over, witnesses said. Insurgents have taken many truck drivers hostage in an effort to spread fear and disrupt supplies for US forces.
Meanwhile, an explosion killed a former senior Ba'ath Party official, Ali Abbas Hassan, as he left his textile factory in Baghdad, said police Lieutenant. Anmar Yassin. Authorities said they did not know the cause of the explosion.
Explosions also were heard in Fallujah, the predominantly Sunni Muslim city considered a haven for militants seeking to attack US and Iraqi forces. Several airstrikes have been launched at suspected safe houses thought to be linked to Jordanian militant Zarqawi.
On Wednesday, the government announced new emergency laws giving it broad powers to fight the enduring insurgency.
