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Attacks injure 7 us troops Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Attacks Injure 7 U.S. Troops in Iraq
Series of Attacks Injures 7 U.S. Troops in Iraq As Coalition Offers Reward for Arrest of Killers
The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq July 8 —
A blistering series of attacks, coming nearly hourly, left seven U.S. soldiers wounded in and around the capital on Tuesday, while the U.S. led provisional authority announced a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone who kills a coalition soldier or Iraqi police officer.
The reward, announced by former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, was an effort to stem a spiraling insurgency that has plagued coalition efforts to bring security and basic services to Iraq. Last week, the U.S.-led provisional authority that runs Iraq announced a $25 million bounty on the head of Saddam Hussein, and a $15 million reward for the capture of each of his two sons.
"I urge the Iraqi people to come forward to take these people off the streets of the country," Kerik said. He also announced that U.S. forces and Iraqi police had arrested Sabah Mirza, a former Saddam bodyguard, on June 26.
Mirza was Saddam's bodyguard in the 1980s before being fired over a dispute. His current connection to the former Iraqi dictator was not clear, but a raid on Mirza's farm after his arrest netted plastic explosives, mortars, a machine gun and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.
U.S. soldiers raided a building in central Baghdad on Tuesday, following up on a claim by residents that say they thought they saw Saddam driving through the area on Monday, and say the ousted leader was met with cheering and gunfire by supporters.
Several pro-Saddam residents chanted pro-Saddam slogans on Tuesday as the U.S. servicemen conducted their sweep, with some singing: "With our souls and our blood we sacrifice ourselves for you Saddam"
The last reported sighting of Saddam was April 9 in the Azamiyah neighborhood of northeastern Baghdad as the capital fell.
L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, said the coalition would not rest until Saddam's fate was determined and reassured Iraqis that he would never again rule their country.
"He may be alive, but he is not coming back," Bremer said. "I think the noose is going to tighten around his neck. His days in Iraq are finished."
Tuesday brought fresh attacks in what has become a bloody and uncertain peace for coalition forces.
Insurgents dropped a homemade bomb from a bridge onto a passing U.S. military convoy in Baghdad, injuring two soldiers. Another two soldiers were injured when their vehicle struck a land mine in the capital, said Sgt. Patrick Compton, a military spokesman.
In Kirkuk, 175 miles north of the capital, assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a military convoy, injuring three servicemen. The patrol returned fire, but there was no word of Iraqi casualties or arrests.
In other violence, witnesses said three Iraqis including a 13-year-old boy were killed following a grenade attack on a police station in a Baghdad suburb. Witnesses told Associated Press Television News that those killed when soldiers returned fire were not among those who attacked the police station.
Late Monday, insurgents fired mortars at a base near Balad, 55 miles north of the capital, the military said. U.S. forces subsequently caught 12 of the suspected attackers. A British soldier was wounded in a sniper attack in Basra, southern Iraq, while on patrol Sunday night, the Defense Ministry said. The soldier was in stable condition at a British army field hospital where he was being treated for gunshot wounds in a leg, the British government said.
Since President George W. Bush declared on May 1 that major combat in Iraq was over, 29 U.S. troops have been killed by hostile fire and 44 others have died in accidents and other non-hostile circumstances, a total of 73.
In the approximately three weeks of fighting before Baghdad fell to U.S. troops on April 9, 102 Americans died, including 87 killed by hostile fire.
In the south on Tuesday, the U.S.-appointed governor of the holy Shiite Muslim city of Karbala resigned Tuesday after allegations of financial improprieties, the U.S. military governor said.
Ali Kammouna, 31, had been the governor of Karbala since May. He was the first postwar governor to be approved by Marines, who have been occupying the southern city since late April.
Kammouna was the second governor in the predominantly Shiite south to lose his job in the past two weeks. The governor of Najaf, another Shiite holy city, was arrested and removed from his post after he was charged with corruption and kidnapping.
Meanwhile, two Arabic television stations aired an audiotape purportedly of Saddam Hussein that they claimed to be new. But journalists familiar with the tape said it sounded remarkably similar to another audiotaped message from the ousted dictator that first appeared in May.
In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq and dismissed concerns that he had overplayed the threat posed by Saddam in the run-up to the war. In Washington, the White House acknowledged that U.S. President George W. Bush was incorrect when he said in his State of the Union address that Iraq recently had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.
photo credit and caption:
An Iraqi girl, with a toy pistol, approaches the scene while U.S. soldier examines the crater created by an explosion at the foot of Jadriya Bridge in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, July 8, 2003. No immediate report of casualties is available. The U.S. troops are under almost daily attacks in Baghdad and neighboring Sunni areas where ousted ruler Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, is believed to still muster some influence. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright © 2002 ABC News Internet Ventures.
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