Insurgent attacks kill 29 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD -- Nearly simultaneous attacks against two police stations and a Shi'ite Muslim mosque killed at least 29 Iraqis here yesterday, ending the relative lull in violence in the capital that had followed US-led offensives against insurgents in Fallujah and northern Babil Province.

Two American soldiers also were killed yesterday in roadside bomb attacks in north Baghdad and Kirkuk. Five soldiers were wounded in the attacks, military officials said.

Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility on an Islamist website for one of the police station attacks, in which 11 carloads of insurgents stormed a headquarters near Baghdad International Airport. A dozen Iraqi officers were killed and five were wounded, hospital officials said.

The claim, which could not be verified, made no mention of a separate suicide car bombing near a Baghdad mosque that killed 17 civilians, including some worshipers leaving morning prayers.

If Zarqawi devised the police station attack, it would mark his deadliest strike against Iraqi security forces in Baghdad since US troops invaded Fallujah to wrest control of the restive Sunni-dominated city from insurgents.

The assault began shortly after dawn yesterday, when nearly 50 insurgents surrounded the Amil precinct station in southwest Baghdad, pelting the building with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.

''We heard heavy, machine-gun fire and RPGs showering us from every direction," said Mohammed Farhan, 24, an Iraqi police officer who was shot in the leg.

After a 15-minute gun battle, insurgents stormed the building and freed several dozen prisoners, witnesses said. One prisoner was killed in the fighting, hospital officials said.

More than 300 Iraqi police supported by US soldiers attached to the Army's First Cavalry Division responded at the scene, US officials said. They confronted the attackers, secured the station, and searched house to house in the neighborhood for fleeing insurgents and freed inmates.

A US military convoy was caught in the crossfire and a Humvee was damaged, but there were no US casualties reported, said Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton, a military spokesman.

Last month, insurgents launched similar daytime raids against police stations in Mosul, but rarely have they attempted such audacious strikes in Iraq's capital.

About the same time yesterday morning, just as a government-imposed curfew was ending, the Adhamiya police station in northwest Baghdad was hit by mortar fire.

''The shells fell near and inside the police station, but Iraqi police chased the attackers away," said Najim Aboud, a police officer at the station. No injuries were reported in the attack.

A few blocks away, a suicide car bomb exploded near the Najar Hussainiyah mosque, which serves Shi'ite Muslims in the largely Sunni district. Shi'ites have long been a target for Zarqawi, who has attempted to ignite religious tensions between Iraq's Muslim sects.

The blast occurred shortly after morning prayers, killing 17 people and injuring 20, witnesses said.

''Most of those hurt were poor civilians living in this neighborhood," said resident Ghaleb Daham.

The explosion shattered windows at the mosque and damaged walls, scattering torn posters of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of most Iraqi Shi'ites, in the street.

Firefighters raced to extinguish blazes in a half-dozen cars and a house.

''What have we done to deserve this treatment?" asked Ali Ahmed, a student who lives near the mosque. ''We were only praying."

In the northern city of Mosul, which has become a hot spot for insurgent attacks in the last month, skirmishes resumed yesterday as militants attacked government buildings with mortars and small arms.

More than 30 mortar rounds struck the offices of the governor and mayor, the courthouse, the Kurdish Democratic Party building, a guesthouse where the governor lives, and the headquarters of the regional Iraqi National Guard leader, according to Mosul Deputy Governor Khasro Koran. Hospital officials reported two Iraqis killed and six injured in the fighting.

''I closed my store and left and saw many people running in all different directions," said Ayad Faiq, a Mosul shop owner.