20 US soldiers wounded in Ramadi
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-06 22:15

Twenty American soldiers were wounded in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi on Saturday, the U.S. military said without elaborating. Residents of that insurgent stronghold, located 70 miles west of Baghdad, reported clashes and explosions throughout the day.

U.S. Army soldiers stand by the scene of an overturned Humvee on a highway on the south side of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2004. Witnesses reported that some soldiers were slightly injured, but no further information was made available. Earlier Saturday, a convoy of civilial trucks had come under attack by gunfire in the same area. [AP]

Also Saturday, insurgents set off at least two car bombs and attacked a police station in the central Iraqi town of Samarra, killing at least 21 people and wounding 22 in what could be an effort to take pressure off Fallujah, where U.S. forces are gearing up for an assault.

The attacks in Samarra, 60 miles northeast of Fallujah, occurred in a city that U.S. and Iraqi forces reclaimed from insurgents in September and had sought to use as a model for pacifying restive Sunni Muslim areas of the country.

Early Saturday, however, armed militants stormed a police station, killing 12 policemen and injuring one. In other attacks, a suicide car bomber detonated explosives inside a stolen police car near the mayor's office, a second car bomb exploded near a U.S. base and a mortar fell on a crowded market.

The dead included an Iraqi National Guard commander, Abdel Razeq Shaker al-Garmali, hospital officials said. The town's mayor was reportedly injured in the car bombing.

Residents said U.S. forces, using loudspeakers to make the announcement, imposed an indefinite curfew on Samarra. American warplanes and helicopters were heard roaming overhead.

In western Baghdad, a suicide car bomber detonated an explosion that wounded three coalition troops, the U.S. military said. The bomber was killed and another occupant in the car was wounded.

The new violence could be aimed at relieving U.S. pressure on Fallujah as American commanders shift their forces for an anticipated showdown there.

More than 10,000 American soldiers and Marines are massed for an expected offensive against Fallujah, and Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned the "window is closing" to avert an attack.

As the Americans prepare for an offensive, U.S. planes dropped five 500-pound bombs at several targets in Fallujah early Saturday, including a factory as well as suspected weapons caches. The drone of U.S. aircraft heading toward Fallujah could be heard over Baghdad. The U.S. military said the main highway into Fallujah has now been completely sealed off.

U.S. intelligence estimates there are about 3,000 insurgents dug in behind defenses and booby traps in Fallujah, a city of about 300,000 located 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Military planners believe there are about 1,200 hardcore insurgents in Fallujah — at least half of them Iraqis. They are bolstered by insurgent cells with up to 2,000 fighters in the surrounding towns and countryside.

In Brussels, Belgium, Allawi warned that the "window really is closing for a peaceful settlement" in Fallujah. Allawi must give the final go-ahead for the offensive, part of a campaign to curb the insurgency ahead of national elections planned for January.

Sunni clerics have threatened to boycott the election if Fallujah is attacked, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned U.S., British and Iraqi authorities that a military campaign and "increased insurgent violence" could put elections at risk.

Iraqi authorities closed a border crossing point with Syria, and U.S. troops set up checkpoints along major routes into the city. Marines fired on a civilian vehicle that did not stop, killing an Iraqi woman and wounding her husband, according to the U.S. military and witnesses. The car didn't notice the checkpoint, witnesses said.

The insurgents struck back, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding five in a rocket attack. Clashes were reported at other checkpoints around the city and in the east and north of the city late in the day. An AC-130 gunship fired at several targets as U.S. forces skirmished with insurgents, the U.S. army said.

Elsewhere, U.S. Cobra attack helicopters fired Friday on insurgents operating an illegal checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing or wounding an "unknown number" of people, the military said.

Allawi, a secular Shiite Muslim with strong ties to the CIA and State Department, has demanded that Fallujah hand over foreign extremists, including Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his followers, and allow government troops to enter the city.

Allawi faces strong opposition to a Fallujah offensive from the Sunni minority. The Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars has threatened to boycott the January election and mount a nationwide civil disobedience campaign.

A public outcry over civilian casualties prompted the Bush administration to call off a siege in April, after which Fallujah fell under control of radical clerics.

In hopes of assuaging public outrage, Iraqi authorities have earmarked $75 million to repair the damage in Fallujah, Marine Maj. Jim West said. The strategy is similar to one used when U.S. troops restored government authority in the Shiite holy city Najaf in August after weeks of fighting with militiamen.

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