33 dead as fourth car bomb rocks Samarra
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-06 22:24

At least 33 people were killed and 48 wounded, including a local police chief, as four car bombs and clashes rocked the restive Iraqi city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, medics and police said.

A man shows the crater from an explosive device that detonated in Samarra. At least 33 people were killed and 48 wounded, including a local police chief, as four car bombs and clashes rocked the restive Iraqi city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, medics and police said. [AFP]

The violence in Samarra erupted barely a month after US and Iraqi troops stormed the Sunni Muslim bastion to regain control of it from rebel forces, and came as the military prepared for an expected similar assault on the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah.

"We have received 33 killed and 48 wounded," said Doctor Nawfal Mohammed at Samarra's general hospital.

The dead, a mix of Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians, included Brigadier General Abdul Razak Mohammed al-Jarmani, the local head of a police rapid reaction force. He died along with five others in a double car bomb attack in front of Samarra's local administration building, officials said.

The attack at 9:30 am (0630 GMT) kicked off a bloody morning.

A third car bomb exploded half an hour later in front of a teachers' college in the city, causing some casualties, and a fourth detonated at about 12:30 pm (0930 GMT) in the south of Samarra, killing 10 and wounding five, police said.

As the bombs rocked the city, masked gunmen stormed three police stations: one in the southern industrial zone, another in the centre and one in the east.

At the eastern Jubairiya station attackers held nine policemen at gunpoint, police officer Alaa Mohammed said.

An AFP correspondent said he saw the bodies of policemen on the street in front of the central industrial zone station. People were seen fleeing the area.

The correspondent said US and Iraqi forces imposed a curfew starting at midday (0900 GMT) for an unknown duration.

For its part, the US military in the area said a US-Iraqi patrol found a stolen police truck laden with explosives in Samarra at about 9:30 am and destroyed it, but one Iraqi national guardsman and four civilians were wounded in the blast.

Samarra has only experienced flashes of deadly violence since US and Iraqi troops raided the city, 125 kilometres (80 miles) north of Baghdad, at the start of October, supposedly to bring it back under government control.

The area had been a no-go zone for Iraqi and US forces since June.

The assault marked the first major offensive by US forces to reclaim a Sunni rebel bastion ahead of national elections set for January.

But a US military commander admitted after the brief operation that many rebel leaders simply went to ground as tension continued to flare in outlaying areas south of Samarra like Al-Dhuluiya and Ishaki.

Troops have since gathered around the flashpoint Sunni cities of Fallujah and Ramadi amid mounting expectations of a new assault as the government battles to restore order ahead of the landmark polls.

The US military reported that 14 of its soldiers had been wounded in action in Ramadi.

"Fourteen soldiers assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were wounded in action today while conducting increased security operations in Ramadi," a spokesman said.

He was unable to give further details on what happened.

Locals from the city, 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad, said a suicide car bomb exploded outside a US military base at about 12:50 pm (0950 GMT) in the Al-Fujariyah district, at the entrance of Ramadi.

The lifeless bodies of Iraqis caught in the attack were scattered on the road outside the base, according to witnesses.

In addition, a police officer in Ramadi said two mortar rounds were fired at a local government building at about 1:25 pm, but he was unable to say whether there had been any casualties.

Elswhere, 12 Iraqi national guardsmen were abducted and killed Thursday in the troubled town of Latifiyah, south of Baghdad, an aide to the powerful local Shiite iman Sheikh Sadreddin Al-Kobbanji claimed on Saturday.

Another guard member escaped the massacre while a driver was first tortured and then released with a letter demanding a ransom for the return of the dead guardsmen's bodies, the aide said.

Desperate to impose order, US and Iraqi troops detained 16 people suspected of attacking US-led forces in Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, police said.

One policeman was killed and four wounded when insurgents attacked their convoy as it returned from Baquba to the nearby town of Baladruz, one of the wounded said, with the assailants managing to flee.

In Baghdad, two mortar rounds were fired on Iraq's interior ministry building, slightly wounding two people, medics and a ministry employee said.

And a heavy explosion rocked the main road to Baghdad's international airport on Saturday afternoon, an AFP reporter said.

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