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Suspected car bomb kills 3 iraqi police Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Suspected Car Bomb Kills 3 Iraqi Police
Thu Jul 15, 2004 04:43 AM ET
By Dean Yates
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suspected car bomb killed three Iraqi police in a town northwest of Baghdad Thursday, while a rocket hit a house in a northern city, killing three children and their mother, officials said.
The fresh violence came a day after a suicide car bombing killed 11 people and wounded 30 in Baghdad in the first big guerrilla attack in the capital since an interim Iraqi government took over from U.S.-led occupiers on June 28.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi will address Iraq's security woes at a news conference at 3 p.m. (1100 GMT), a spokeswoman said.
The government plans to offer an amnesty to insurgents if they lay down their weapons, although the spokeswoman would not say if Allawi would announce the offer Thursday.
In a further sign that Allawi faces a major security problem, gunmen killed the governor of the northern city of Mosul, Osama Kashmoula, Wednesday in an attack on his convoy.
Police Lieutenant Mohamed Ghanem said Thursday's suspected car bombing in the town of Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad, also wounded nine people, mainly police.
The blast damaged a municipal building and a bank, he added.
In Kirkuk, a mother and her three children were killed when a rocket landed on their house late Wednesday as they slept on the roof to escape the summer heat, police said.
Reuters Television pictures showed spattered pools of blood and blood-drenched furnishings on the roof of the home on the outskirts of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad.
Three pairs of house slippers lay abandoned.
"We don't know where the rocket was fired from or what the target was," said Colonel Kamaran Ahmed of the Kirkuk police force, adding two family members were also wounded.
In the southern city Kerbala, police said a car bomb exploded around midnight about 500 meters (yards) from a base were Bulgarian troops are based. Two people inside the car were killed but there were no other casualties.
Bulgaria has 450 troops based on the outskirts of Kerbala, 110 km (68 miles) southwest of Baghdad.
Fire erupted in an oil pipeline in northern Iraq Thursday near the country's main Kirkuk oilfields, witnesses said. The country's northern export pipeline runs through the area.
HOSTAGE CRISIS
In Manila, the Philippine military awaited orders to pull its small contingent out of Iraq in a bid to save the life of a civilian hostage as the United States piled pressure on its Asian ally not to cave in to militants' demands.
"In a time of test where enemies demand you kneel...I just ask you please don't confuse your enemies or your friends," U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone said after a meeting with Philippine Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita Thursday.
Militants have threatened to kill truck driver Angelo de la Cruz unless Manila withdraws its 51 personnel by July 20, a month ahead of schedule.
Bulgaria watched a deadline for the execution of a Bulgarian hostage pass without news Wednesday but stood firm on its pro-U.S. policies and refused to pull out its troops.
Militants led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have killed one of two Bulgarian truck drivers held hostage and are threatening to execute the second. Arabic Al Jazeera television said Tuesday night a video of that execution was too gruesome to air.
A Saudi firm said it was ready to quit Iraq to meet the demands of militants holding an Egyptian truck driver.
In Mosul, police said they had killed one man and arrested two others over suspected involvement in the assassination on Kashmoula.
He was killed along with his two bodyguards in a grenade attack on his convoy on the highway between Baghdad and Mosul.
Kashmoula was the most senior official to be assassinated in Iraq since May, when a suicide bomber killed the head of Iraq's now-defunct Governing Council.
Wednesday, Allawi condemned the "naked aggression" of those behind the Baghdad bombing outside a main entrance to the heavily defended "Green Zone" compound, which houses government buildings along with the U.S. and British embassies.
In the chaotic 15 months since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, insurgents have launched almost daily attacks against American troops and Iraqi security forces.
Iraq launched a national security law last week under which the government can impose emergency law on specific areas of the country, but has yet to make such a move.
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