US says Iraqi bunkers destroyed

The US military has said it destroyed two bunkers in Iraq suspected of being used by fighters to store weapons and plan attacks.

US forces say 12 weapons caches were found near Karmah

US forces on Monday said they destroyed a former Republican Guard bunker system in the Yusifiyah area southwest of Baghdad on Thursday after a tip by residents and surveillance of the site.

 

The military’s statement said the bunker, in an area that housed a major part of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s former military-industrial complex, was being used to store ammunition.

 

“Coalition Forces engaged the complex with five high-precision smart-bombs,” it said.

 

“Secondary detonations emanating from inside the complex” continued for about six hours after the strike, the statement added.

US military statements indicated that 12 weapons caches were found in an 8km radius near an abandoned rock quarry in the town of Karmah, close to the city of Falluja.

 

Attacks

 

A US soldier and six Iraqi civilians, including two children, have been killed in attacks in northern Iraq, the US military said on Monday.

 

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Iraqi forces opened fired at a
vehicle speeding towards them

In Baghdad, three police commandos were wounded on Monday as they stopped a car bomber from hitting their headquarters in the southwestern Amil district, an Interior Ministry official said.


“Guards opened fire on a Daewoo car that was speeding towards the base entrance, killing the driver and preventing the vehicle from breaching the gate,” the official said.

 

According to another US military statement released late on Sunday, five Iraqis died during a mortar attack in the northern city of Mosul. The statement did not provide further details.

 

The statement also said that 10 civilians had been killed and another 10 wounded in attacks over the past four days in northern Iraq.


Mortar fire 
 

Another civilian was killed on Monday and two were wounded when five mortar shells were fired from a car at a police station in western Mosul, an Iraqi police officer said.

 

Four shells landed inside the police compound but did not cause any casualties, while the fifth missed its target and killed a man in the street.

In Tikrit, near the hometown of Saddam, four Iraqi soldiers were wounded by a car bomber at a checkpoint at an entrance to a US military base.

 

Meanwhile a roadside bomb killed a US soldier on Sunday after hitting his patrol near the city of Kirkuk, the military said.

The soldier was critically wounded in the blast and died after being evacuated to a medical facility.

 

The latest death brought the number of US service personnel killed in Iraq to 1670, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

Source: AFP