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Mortar attack iraq market { September 26 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3194519,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3194519,00.html
8 Killed in Mortar Attack on Iraq Market
Friday September 26, 2003 11:29 AM
By ROBERT H. REID
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A mortar blast tore through a market north of Baghdad, killing eight civilians, and a U.S. soldier was killed in an ambush in the north of the country as the American-led coalition struggles to maintain order five months after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
Amid the continuing violence, the United Nations announced it was cutting its staff in Baghdad and Iraqis prepared to bury an assassinated member of Iraq's Governing Council.
The blast occurred about 9 p.m. Thursday at a market in Baqouba, about 30 miles north of Baghdad. Eight civilians died and another 18 were wounded, the Army said. Troops of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division rushed to the scene to help.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military said one soldier from the 173rd Airborne Brigade was killed and two others were wounded during an ambush in northern Iraq. The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Thursday when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at their vehicle. The names of the victims were withheld pending notification of kin.
The death raised to 86 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq.
Also Friday, the military announced that a soldier from the 4th Infantry Division died and another was injured in a fire Thursday night in an abandoned building in the Tikrit area. No further details were released.
Meanwhile, Iraqi leaders prepared to bury Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on the 25-member Governing Council, who died Thursday of wounds suffered in an ambush near her home on Sept. 20. A convoy carrying al-Hashimi's body left the capital Friday for the funeral in Najaf, a Shiite holy city 110 miles to the south.
Al-Hashimi, a Shiite Muslim, was the first member of the council targeted for assassination and was the leading candidate to become Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations. She was to have attended the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week.
The council declared three days of mourning that began Thursday. In a written statement, it said al-Hashimi ``fell as a martyr on the path of freedom and democracy to build this great nation. She died at the hands of a clique of infidels and cunning people who only know darkness.''
The current council president, Ahmad Chalabi, blamed her death on Saddam loyalists.
Al-Hashimi died on a day when violence blamed on opponents of the U.S.-led occupation targeted both Iraqis and foreigners alike. Early Thursday, a bomb damaged a hotel housing the offices of the NBC News, raising fears of attacks against international media. A Somali guard was killed and an NBC sound engineer was slightly wounded in the early morning explosion at the small al-Aike Hotel in the city's fashionable Karrada district.
The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, has warned he would use whatever force necessary to defeat those who attack American soldiers.
The inability of the U.S.-led coalition to stop the violence was behind a decision Thursday by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to order a further reduction of U.N. international staff in Iraq. Annan's order came days after the second bombing outside U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on Monday killed an Iraqi policeman and injured 19 others.
The first bombing, on Aug. 19, killed 22 people at the Baghdad headquarters. At that time, about 300 international staff were in Baghdad and another 300 elsewhere in Iraq, and Annan ordered the number reduced to 42 in Baghdad and 44 in the north.
U.S. spokesman Fred Eckhard said he did not know how many of the 86 remaining international staffers would leave for Amman, Jordan, under the latest order. They are to depart within the next two days.
``This is not an evacuation, just a further downsizing and the security situation in the country remains under constant review,'' Eckhard said.
In Baghdad, U.N. spokeswoman Veronique Taveau insisted that the United Nations was not abandoning the Iraqi people.
``Security in Iraq is really a concern for us but we are committed to work with the Iraqi population,'' she said Friday. ``As soon as the situation improves in Iraq, we will ask them to come back but we have still some international staff here and we are working. We are working but we are assessing the situation on a daily basis.''
The new cuts were announced as the Security Council debates a new resolution the United States hopes will bring new troops and money to Iraq. Opponents of the U.S.-led war in Iraq - including France, Germany and Russia - are calling for the United Nations to take over the political transition and are demanding a speedier timetable for the handover of power than the United States has proposed.
President Bush is struggling to win international support for a U.N. resolution designed to bring fresh peacekeeping troops and financial support.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed some success Thursday in forging a consensus at the United Nations on nation-building in Iraq. ``We are seeing some convergence of views,'' he said after a meeting of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
In the days head, Powell said, the Bush administration ``will be looking at language'' to alter the proposed U.S. resolution, which has been stalemated by objections that the United States was not willing to yield sufficient authority to the United Nations.
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Associated Press writer Patrick Quinn contributed to this report from Tikrit, Iraq.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
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