Friday, December 03, 2004
Simultaneous Iraq Attacks Leave at Least 20 Dead
By Scott WilsonWashington Post Foreign ServiceFriday, December 3, 2004; 7:05 AM
BAGHDAD, Dec. 3 -- Iraqi insurgents staged nearly simultaneous attacks Friday morning on police stations at opposite ends of Baghdad, killing at least 20 people, freeing dozens of prisoners and emptying a police arsenal in a demonstration of the militants' strength in the heart of the country.
Hours later insurgents rose up in Mosul, overrunning many points in the western sector of Iraq's third-largest city.
The strikes employed small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and a potent car bomb, the insurgents' time-tested methods. As in many such attacks, most of those killed during the fighting appeared to be civilians. Just after noon the group led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant, claimed responsibility for the attacks on a Web site known for carrying its statements.
Eleven police officers were killed after dozens of armed militants overran the police station in the southern neighborhood of Saydiya after an hours-long gun battle.
Across town in Adhamiya, a restive Sunni Muslim neighborhood that U.S. military officials have said may be serving as a sanctuary for insurgents who fled fighting in Fallujah, a car bomb exploded around 6 a.m. on the cool Muslim Sabbath, according to police officials.
The explosion occurred in front of a Shiite Muslim mosque and killed an estimated 14 people while wounding more than 20 others. Several witnesses said a small blast drew people outside to see what happened at the mosque, which sits near an Iraqi police station, when a larger explosion detonated to deadly effect.
Soon afterward, fighting erupted between Iraqi police and militants, who fired on the police station with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
As columns of black smoke filled the morning sky, a U.S. warplane swooped over the neighborhood and fired several missiles at targets on the ground. Apache helicopters also fired into the neighborhood during a firefight that witnesses said lasted roughly 90 minutes.
In the chaotic aftermath, Iraqi police struggled to keep the people away from the scene by cracking shots from AK-47s into the air and along the pavement. Local merchants fled inside shops whose shutters were riddled with bullets in near-panic.
"My house was destroyed during the war by the Americans," said Mohammed, 27, who sells CDs and cassette tapes nearby and declined to give his last name for security reasons. "From that moment until now I have hated the Americans. I support the resistance," he said. But "I don't want the people to be hurt."
The attacks marked the second day of intense insurgent activity in the capital after a period of relative calm following the U.S. military push into Fallujah, the Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad that had served as a militant staging ground.
In recent weeks, Mosul has become a leading center of insurgent activity, an alarming downward turn given its size and central importance to commerce and security in the north.
Khasro Koran, the deputy governor of Mosul, said insurgents attacked several U.S. and Iraqi military installations Friday morning with mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire from sites in western Mosul, the Arab sector of a city with significant Kurdish and Turkmen populations. Many insurgents could be seen in the streets, Koran said.
"We had helicopters in the sky, and I think the insurgents have now disappeared," Koran said. "They don't have any control of buildings, but you can see them in groups of five to 20 men with weapons in the streets or making checkpoints. Just showing themselves."
The insurgents' guerrilla tactics have proven difficult to defend against, and the novice Iraqi security forces have been consistently outgunned trying to protect police stations, checkpoints and other static posts.
U.S. forces appeared quickly in support Friday morning, particularly the attack helicopters and warplanes whose distant buzz has been heard here in recent days circling far overhead in case needed.
Before morning, insurgents established a checkpoint a few blocks from the Saydiya police station and cut off all traffic into the area, neighborhood residents said. The area of three-story apartment buildings, called the Saddam district during the dictatorship, sits near the treacherous road that leads to the international airport.
Witnesses said gunfire began crackling around the neighborhood about 3:30 a.m., intensifying as dawn approached. "We couldn't sleep all morning because of the heavy shooting," said Adel Jabouri, 31, a school teacher.
Jabouri said several officers posted to the station's rooftop fought for hours to hold off what police officials estimate was 50 armed men. "These guys were so brave," said Jabouri, who added that the station has come under attack before but not so intensely.
Once inside the station courtyard, the militants freed an estimated 50 or more prisoners being held there and looted the police arsenal of small arms, mostly assault rifles, pistols and ammunition.
Street vendors said they saw two Kia minivans carrying the covered bodies of dead police officers from the scene. "If you go to this station now, you will not see any of our friends and colleagues," said Raheem Ali, 22, a police officer who manned a checkpoint outside the station Friday morning.
In Adhamiya, witnesses said armed insurgents began firing through the streets on the police station around 6:45 a.m., at a time when people in the neighborhood were waiting in long gasoline lines that have become common around the capital in recent weeks of fuel shortages. Much of the neighborhood was severely damaged in fighting that followed the Nov. 20 U.S. military raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque, a revered Sunni shrine nearby.
Bullet holes pock many walls, and graffiti spray-painted on the neighborhood bus stops proclaims, "Down with the pagan guard," referring to the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Guard.
"From what I hear, the mujahadeen are moving freely here and sometimes they hide in the cemetery near my house," said Haj Omar, a tailor in the neighborhood. "This is not the first time this has happened. We've gotten used to it."
A month ago a small explosive was placed inside the Haj Hameed Alwan Najjar Mosque, scorched and battered in Friday morning's explosion. Many witnesses said that until the blast last month Sunni and Shiites prayed together in the mosque, but no longer. "Why is this happening?" said Laith Karim, 15, who has two brothers and four cousins wounded in the Friday blast. "We used to live together, as Muslims."
Correspondent Anthony Shadid and special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
'
By Scott WilsonWashington Post Foreign ServiceFriday, December 3, 2004; 7:05 AM
BAGHDAD, Dec. 3 -- Iraqi insurgents staged nearly simultaneous attacks Friday morning on police stations at opposite ends of Baghdad, killing at least 20 people, freeing dozens of prisoners and emptying a police arsenal in a demonstration of the militants' strength in the heart of the country.
Hours later insurgents rose up in Mosul, overrunning many points in the western sector of Iraq's third-largest city.
The strikes employed small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and a potent car bomb, the insurgents' time-tested methods. As in many such attacks, most of those killed during the fighting appeared to be civilians. Just after noon the group led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant, claimed responsibility for the attacks on a Web site known for carrying its statements.
Eleven police officers were killed after dozens of armed militants overran the police station in the southern neighborhood of Saydiya after an hours-long gun battle.
Across town in Adhamiya, a restive Sunni Muslim neighborhood that U.S. military officials have said may be serving as a sanctuary for insurgents who fled fighting in Fallujah, a car bomb exploded around 6 a.m. on the cool Muslim Sabbath, according to police officials.
The explosion occurred in front of a Shiite Muslim mosque and killed an estimated 14 people while wounding more than 20 others. Several witnesses said a small blast drew people outside to see what happened at the mosque, which sits near an Iraqi police station, when a larger explosion detonated to deadly effect.
Soon afterward, fighting erupted between Iraqi police and militants, who fired on the police station with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
As columns of black smoke filled the morning sky, a U.S. warplane swooped over the neighborhood and fired several missiles at targets on the ground. Apache helicopters also fired into the neighborhood during a firefight that witnesses said lasted roughly 90 minutes.
In the chaotic aftermath, Iraqi police struggled to keep the people away from the scene by cracking shots from AK-47s into the air and along the pavement. Local merchants fled inside shops whose shutters were riddled with bullets in near-panic.
"My house was destroyed during the war by the Americans," said Mohammed, 27, who sells CDs and cassette tapes nearby and declined to give his last name for security reasons. "From that moment until now I have hated the Americans. I support the resistance," he said. But "I don't want the people to be hurt."
The attacks marked the second day of intense insurgent activity in the capital after a period of relative calm following the U.S. military push into Fallujah, the Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad that had served as a militant staging ground.
In recent weeks, Mosul has become a leading center of insurgent activity, an alarming downward turn given its size and central importance to commerce and security in the north.
Khasro Koran, the deputy governor of Mosul, said insurgents attacked several U.S. and Iraqi military installations Friday morning with mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire from sites in western Mosul, the Arab sector of a city with significant Kurdish and Turkmen populations. Many insurgents could be seen in the streets, Koran said.
"We had helicopters in the sky, and I think the insurgents have now disappeared," Koran said. "They don't have any control of buildings, but you can see them in groups of five to 20 men with weapons in the streets or making checkpoints. Just showing themselves."
The insurgents' guerrilla tactics have proven difficult to defend against, and the novice Iraqi security forces have been consistently outgunned trying to protect police stations, checkpoints and other static posts.
U.S. forces appeared quickly in support Friday morning, particularly the attack helicopters and warplanes whose distant buzz has been heard here in recent days circling far overhead in case needed.
Before morning, insurgents established a checkpoint a few blocks from the Saydiya police station and cut off all traffic into the area, neighborhood residents said. The area of three-story apartment buildings, called the Saddam district during the dictatorship, sits near the treacherous road that leads to the international airport.
Witnesses said gunfire began crackling around the neighborhood about 3:30 a.m., intensifying as dawn approached. "We couldn't sleep all morning because of the heavy shooting," said Adel Jabouri, 31, a school teacher.
Jabouri said several officers posted to the station's rooftop fought for hours to hold off what police officials estimate was 50 armed men. "These guys were so brave," said Jabouri, who added that the station has come under attack before but not so intensely.
Once inside the station courtyard, the militants freed an estimated 50 or more prisoners being held there and looted the police arsenal of small arms, mostly assault rifles, pistols and ammunition.
Street vendors said they saw two Kia minivans carrying the covered bodies of dead police officers from the scene. "If you go to this station now, you will not see any of our friends and colleagues," said Raheem Ali, 22, a police officer who manned a checkpoint outside the station Friday morning.
In Adhamiya, witnesses said armed insurgents began firing through the streets on the police station around 6:45 a.m., at a time when people in the neighborhood were waiting in long gasoline lines that have become common around the capital in recent weeks of fuel shortages. Much of the neighborhood was severely damaged in fighting that followed the Nov. 20 U.S. military raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque, a revered Sunni shrine nearby.
Bullet holes pock many walls, and graffiti spray-painted on the neighborhood bus stops proclaims, "Down with the pagan guard," referring to the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Guard.
"From what I hear, the mujahadeen are moving freely here and sometimes they hide in the cemetery near my house," said Haj Omar, a tailor in the neighborhood. "This is not the first time this has happened. We've gotten used to it."
A month ago a small explosive was placed inside the Haj Hameed Alwan Najjar Mosque, scorched and battered in Friday morning's explosion. Many witnesses said that until the blast last month Sunni and Shiites prayed together in the mosque, but no longer. "Why is this happening?" said Laith Karim, 15, who has two brothers and four cousins wounded in the Friday blast. "We used to live together, as Muslims."
Correspondent Anthony Shadid and special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
'
