Iraq: Day of attacks leaves many casualties

A string of attacks on Sunday targeting US-led occupation forces throughout Iraq has left many casualties, a day after suspected Iraqi resistance fighters launched their first seaborne operation.

Witnesses say two US soldiers are injured or dead in Baghdad

According to Aljazeera’s correspondent, two Iraqi doctors were killed and 10 employees were injured in a rocket attack on a hospital in the northern city of Mosul on Sunday.

The rocket hit al-Salam hospital, in the eastern part of the city, at about 09:30 local time (05:30 GMT), according to Major Salam Muhammad Amin of Iraqi police.

A hotel and a local television station were also hit with rockets after the attack on the hospital.

Hotel attacked

  

A rocket hit the Ashur hotel in the centre of the city, according to Major Abd Al- Rahman al-Obaidi of Iraqi police.

 

He said the parking lot attendant was killed as well as an operator of the generator supplying power to the hotel, which suffered external damage.

  

Another rocket targeted a local television and radio station, according to the station’s head, Ghazi Faisal.

Loud explosions were also heard throughout the city.

In the central Iraqi city of Karbala, an Iraqi was shot dead by Polish troops on Sunday.

 

Aljazeera’s correspondent says Polish and Bulgarian forces have set up a number of checkpoints in different parts of the city. 

Nasiriyah attack

Meanwhile, the headquarters of the civil authority in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah came under mortar attack at dawn on Sunday.

undefined

Aljazeera’s correspondent reports that Italian forces and Iraqi police have searched the area, looking for those responsible for the attack. 

US occupation forces arrested Abd Allah Ali, the director of the Sunni Endowments (SI) of the governorate of Salah al-Din, in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit.


Aljazeera’s correspondent reports staff of the SI protested against the arrest of Ali and called on the US coordinator of the city to free him.

Western Iraq

In the restive majority Sunni Muslim west of the country, an explosive device hit a US patrol on a road in Ramadi.

 

At least three vehicles in US convoy were reported ablaze 
At least three vehicles in US convoy were reported ablaze 

At least three vehicles in US
convoy were reported ablaze 

US soldiers were immediately deployed in the area looking for other explosive devices, Aljazeera’s correspondent said.

Three US military vehicles were reported ablaze when they came under attack in Habhab area on the main highway linking Baghdad to Kirkuk.

 

Eyewitnesses told Aljazeera an unknown number of US soldiers were also injured in the attack.

 

And in Baquba, two Iraqi policemen were injured when unknown armed men opened fire on their car, Aljazeera’s correspondent reported.

US convoy attacked

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb badly damaged a US military vehicle in Baghdad, with witnesses confirming American casualties.

The boat attack failed to destroyal-Basra oil terminal
The boat attack failed to destroyal-Basra oil terminal

The boat attack failed to destroy
al-Basra oil terminal

The targeted Humvee was part of an occupation military convoy driving through Canal Street in the capital on Sunday.


Locals said US soldiers in the convoy opened fire randomly after the blast, wounding several passersby.
   
Two soldiers in the Humvee were evacuated from the scene by military medics. 

No US military spokesman was prepared to comment on the attack. 

  
Sea attack

Sunday’s attacks follow the Iraqi resistance’s first sea attack on US-led occupation forces in the south of the country.

Two US sailors were killed and five more wounded during an attack on an offshore oil export terminal off the southern Iraqi coast.

A spokeswoman for the US navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said three speedboats carried out a coordinated attack.

Two of the attacking boats exploded alongside a ship anchored at al-Basra terminal about 10km offshore, the third was intercepted.

British Defence Ministry spokeswoman said the attacks on Saturday evening failed to damage the oil terminal.

But an occupation spokesman on Sunday said crude oil exports to Basra would be halted for “at least two days” after the attacks.   


It was the first known maritime attack on Iraqi oil facilities since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.


Hospital workers in Falluja coverthe body of a two-year-old boy 
Hospital workers in Falluja coverthe body of a two-year-old boy 

Hospital workers in Falluja cover
the body of a two-year-old boy 

Iraqi casualties

Aljazeera’s correspondents in Falluja and Baghdad reported that more than 40 Iraqis were killed on Saturday in separate incidents in different parts of the country.

  


About 14 Iraqis were killed and 36 others were injured in al-Sadr City in Baghdad.

 

Witnesses told Aljazeera a number of missiles were fired at a crowded market in the poor Shia suburb, killing and injuring a large number of people.

 

US helicopters launched an air strike on al-Naimiya village south of Falluja city, killing at least 12 Iraqis in one family and injuring 19 others.

 

Many of the village’s houses were also damaged.

 

More than a dozen Iraqis, including a child, were killed and 11 others were injured, six of them seriously, when an explosive device hit a passenger bus in al-Haswa area south of Baghdad. 

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies