The terror group al-Qaida in Iraq claimed to have carried out its second major attack against a U.S. base in a little over a week, saying it was responsible for suicide bombers who tried Monday to ram two cars and a fire truck into a remote military camp in western Iraq, injuring three Marines and three civilians.
Later Monday in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, a pickup truck exploded in a crowded market, killing at least two people and injuring more than 20 others, hospital officials said. Witnesses said the blast was targeting a U.S. patrol, but the U.S. military did not have any immediate information.
In the earlier attack, suicide bombers detonated two cars and the fire truck at a security checkpoint at Camp Gannon, a small Marine outpost in the western Iraqi town of Qaim, the U.S. military said in a statement.
"The drivers of the vehicles were stopped short of the camp by forces manning the checkpoints," the statement said.
Military authorities said the blasts slightly damaged the camp's concrete barriers and barbed wire, as well as a nearby mosque.
Insurgents also opened fire on the camp, and a U.S. attack helicopter destroyed a car with a gunman, officials said. It was unclear how many insurgents and suicide bombers were killed in the assault. Three Marines were evacuated for medical treatment.
The attack came nine days after dozens of insurgents used rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and a car bomb in a failed attempt to break into the U.S. military's controversial Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. The attack April 2 injured more than 40 U.S. service members and more than a dozen prisoners at a facility that has become synonymous with the military's prison abuse scandal.
Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed to have carried out that attack, too, although none of their statements can be independently confirmed. President Bush said the April 2 assault showed that the group was still deadly.
Also Monday, hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi forces launched their biggest Baghdad raid in recent weeks, moving on foot through a central neighborhood and rounding up dozens of suspected insurgents, the military said.
About 500 members of Iraq's police and army swept through buildings in the Rashid neighborhood along with some 200 American soldiers, detaining 65 suspected militants, Lt. Col. Clifford Kent of the Fort Stewart, Ga.-based 3rd Infantry Division said.
One Iraqi soldier suffered injuries but no American casualties were reported in the largest joint U.S.-Iraqi raid in Iraq's capital since the 3rd Infantry Division assumed responsibility for the city on Feb. 27, Kent said.
One suspected insurgent was also being treated for wounds, the military said in a statement.
In a small victory against kidnappings that have terrorized an already troubled nation, a Defense Ministry official said Monday that Iraqi security forces arrested a person who claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of two French journalists abducted and later released in Iraq.
Iraqi army soldiers detained Amer Hussein Sheikhan in the Mahmoudiya area on April 4, the official said on customary condition of anonymity. No other details were available.
Journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were released in December after four months in captivity.
In Romania, Adriana Saftoiu, spokeswoman for President Traian Basescu, said officials believe three Romanian journalists kidnapped along with their guide nearly two weeks ago in Iraq were still alive and authorities were optimistic they would return home. She offered no other information.
At the same time, a group claiming to have kidnapped a Pakistani official in Iraq has demanded money for his release, a senior Pakistani government official said without giving his name.
Malik Mohammed Javed, a deputy counselor at the Pakistani mission in Baghdad, went missing late Saturday after leaving home for prayers at a nearby mosque.
Legislators met Monday to discuss rules and regulations governing their sessions, but little headway was made on forming a new government. Shiite Ibrahim al-Jaafari was named last week to the country's interim prime minister post, but he is still forming his Cabinet.
Hussein al-Sadr, a lawmaker from the coalition of outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said his group had decided to participate in the government, adding that the inclusion must be a "real and effective one and not a nominal one."
He said the coalition was demanding four ministerial posts, including one of the main ministries.
"If our demands are not met, then we will lead the opposition in the parliament," he said.
Ali al-Dabagh, a lawmaker from the Shiite-led United Iraq Alliance, said he thought the demands were too high.
Reaching out to the country's top religious officials, one of Iraq's two vice presidents — Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab — met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a leading Shiite leader who called on voters to cast ballots during the country's historic Jan. 30 elections.
"We came as a delegation to thank Mr. al-Sistani for his great work and insistence that led to the success of the elections and formation of a National Assembly," al-Yawer told reporters after the 90-minute meeting in the holy city of Najaf.
Some have feared al-Sistani would influence the formation of a new government, signaling an increased role for the religious leadership. Al-Sistani has said he does not intend to involve himself in any political process, except for expressing his opinion during crises.
On Sunday, al-Yawer met with the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group with alleged ties to the insurgency. They discussed progress in naming the new government.
In Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, demonstrators chanted anti-American slogans, continuing three days of protests against U.S. forces and calling for the Americans to go home. Tens of thousands gathered Saturday in Baghdad to call for U.S.-led troops to leave, and more demonstrations were held Sunday in Duluiyah, 45 miles north of the capital. |
France paid millions of dollars for the release of three journalists kidnapped in Iraq and its foreign intelligence service now knows the identity of the abductors, a reporter who was himself held hostage in Lebanon in 1987 said on Monday in a magazine interview. Roger Auque told the August-September issue of Afrique Magazine that - despite official denials - the French government had paid $6m to free Liberation newspaper correspondent Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter in June. Two other French journalists who had been released last December, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were handed over in exchange for $2m, Auque said, relying on what he described as "a reliable source" for his information. 
Iraqi security forces have arrested one of the kidnappers of two French journalists held for 124 days before being freed last December, the defence ministry said on Monday. Without naming the journalists - 
Swiss authorities said Friday they have detained five Islamic extremists suspected of using the Internet to show the killing of hostages — which reportedly included the beheading of an American — and to give bomb-making instructions. 