Car bomb kills eight as US pounds Fallujah

A suicide car bomber killed at least eight people in an attack on a police checkpoint in Baghdad today, after a night of US air strikes around the rebel-held city of Fallujah that killed scores.

A government spokesman said the bomb had detonated beside a line of police vehicles set up to seal off routes to nearby Haifa Street, where US troops were pressing on with the battles they have been fighting all week to dislodge insurgents.

The Interior Ministry said five police had been killed and the Health Ministry said at least three civilians were also dead, and the toll could rise. Earlier, a government spokesman had put the death toll at 13.

A large crater was gouged into the road and several police cars were set ablaze, sending thick smoke into the sky.

On Tuesday, a suicide car bomb attack on a police station killed 47 people, the deadliest attack in Baghdad in six months.

The US military is fighting to regain control of guerrilla strongholds and restore security so that elections can be held in January as planned.

But there are growing doubts over the polls and US Secretary of State Colin Powell conceded they could not be held under current security conditions.

The US military said an air strike last night near Fallujah had killed around 60 foreign fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian with a $US25 million ($A35.89 million) price on his head.

Early today, US warplanes destroyed a compound in south central Fallujah that the US military said was also used by Zarqawi’s militants.

Iraq’s Health Ministry said at least 45 civilians had been killed in the air strikes.

Reuters television images showed bloodied bodies, including women and children, on hospital beds.

This evening, US aircraft again attacked targets in Fallujah, destroying four houses, residents said. Doctors at Fallujah’s hospital said at least six people were killed.

In the southern city of Basra, British troops raided an office used by supporters of rebel cleric Moqtada al Sadr, whose militiamen launched two bloody uprisings this year in the holy city of Najaf.

The soldiers seized a large quantity of weapons and explosives, a military spokesman said.

The raid involving around 100 troops followed an ambush on a British patrol in Basra today in which one soldier was wounded, Major Charlie Mayo told Britain’s Sky News from Iraq.

More than 200 Iraqis have been killed over the past few days alone in bombings and other violence.

Powell said US diplomats and military commanders recognised the vote could not go ahead nationwide under the current security conditions, and that areas in rebel hands had to be brought back under government control.

But he told the Washington Times, in an interview published today, that ’’we don’t expect the security situation as it exists now on the 16th of September to be the security situation’’ on the day Iraqis vote.

Today’s violence in Baghdad began before dawn around Haifa Street. The US military said its troops had fired on a car packed with explosives that was driving towards a checkpoint, killing two men in the vehicle.

Later, blasts and gunfire echoed from Haifa Street as US troops moved in.

Iraqi police said they had arrested 63 militants, including Syrians, Egyptians and Sudanese, in a sweep in Haifa Street.

International divisions over the Iraq war have reopened, with France and Belgium stalling plans today for NATO to launch a training academy for senior military officers in Iraq.

A report by the top US weapons inspector in Iraq was unlikely to reduce France’s long-standing scepticism about the US-led war in Iraq, which Washington justified in part by saying there was a threat from weapons of mass destruction.

A still-to-be-finalised draft by Charles Duelfer says no stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons have been found, although there is evidence that Saddam Hussein intended to resurrect such programs, US government sources told Reuters.

In the latest kidnapping of foreigners, three Turkish truck drivers were seized by gunmen on a road north of Baghdad, the Iraqi National Guard said.

More than 100 foreigners from dozens of countries have been snatched in the last six months, and at least 30 have been killed.

Many hostages have been truck drivers from impoverished countries, but at least seven Westerners are being held.

Yesterday, gunmen abducted two Americans and a Briton from a house in an affluent neighbourhood of central Baghdad.

Two male French journalists and two Italian female aid workers have also been taken hostage in the past few weeks.

Police said they had found the body of a man believed to be a Westerner, apparently shot in the head and dead for some time, late yesterday near Samarra, north of Baghdad.

The man was in civilian clothes and had his hands tied behind his back. Police were trying to identify him.

Australia has been investigating an unverified claim that two of its citizens were kidnapped in the area.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/18/1095394044780.html?oneclick=true