Mine Kills Marine Near Baghdad in Day of Deadly Insurgent Attacks
"Iraq"03/30/2005
By ROBERT F. WORTH
NY Times
Published: March 31, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 30 - A marine was killed Wednesday when his patrol struck a land mine northwest of here, while insurgents unleashed a string of attacks, the most deadly of them on pilgrims headed to Karbala for a Shiite religious festival.
The marine was killed as he traveled in a combat logistics patrol near Qaim, a town close to the Syrian border, American military officials said.
South of Baghdad, gunmen fired on a minibus full of Shiite pilgrims, wounding eight, the police and hospital officials said. The attack occurred near Latifiya, a lawless area where insurgents have often attacked Shiite pilgrims going to or from the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala.
Farther south, another group of gunmen fired on a car full of Shiite pilgrims near Mahaweel, killing one and wounding two, The Associated Press reported.
Thousands of Shiites crowded the roads on Wednesday, traveling to Karbala to celebrate the Arbayeen festival. The holiday marks the end of a traditional 40-day mourning period for Hussein, a Shiite martyr who was killed in a battle outside Karbala in the seventh century.
Witnesses reported a clash between four insurgents and American forces at a checkpoint in Mosul in the north. A local police official told The Associated Press that the four insurgents jumped from a car and began shooting, killing six Iraqis and wounding eight others before being killed by return fire. American military officials said they had no information on the attack immediately.
Also in Mosul, gunmen fired on an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, wounding two guards, then sped away, witnesses said.
West of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded outside a primary school on Wednesday morning, killing a guard and wounding five civilians, Interior Ministry officials said.
The State Department said Wednesday that an American citizen was kidnapped in Iraq on Monday. “We can confirm that an American citizen was taken along with the three Romanian journalists who were kidnapped in Iraq on Monday,” said Steven Pike, a State Department spokesman. He provided no further details.
The attacks occurred a day after the second meeting of the new Iraqi national assembly fell apart amid angry exchanges over the continuing failure to form a government. Some leaders have said the delay could postpone by six months the writing of a constitution and the next round of elections.
Despite the delays, Washington is not exerting additional pressure on the parties, said a United States official in Baghdad. “We are not suggesting names for jobs or numbers for the parties and factions within parliament,” the official said. The American role is limited to urging the Iraqi leaders to keep talking and to be creative in their approach to issues that have divided them.
A top Iraqi official offered additional details on Wednesday on a raid on March 22 that killed dozens of insurgents at a training camp northwest of Baghdad. The official, Maj. Gen. Adnan Thabit, who directs all the police commandos in Iraq, said 85 insurgents had been killed in the raid, the number that was originally reported by Iraqi officials but was subsequently questioned. He said the figure had been confirmed by commandos and intelligence agents on the scene. Few bodies were found, he said, because escaping insurgents removed them in boats, and some insurgents drowned in the lake.
In addition to the weapons found in the raid, commandos discovered training materials for making explosives and imprisoning and torturing captives, General Thabit said.