15 insurgents killed as Iraq violence rises

By PAUL GARWOOD
The Associated Press

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In a 24-hour period, insurgents assassinated a former government official in Baghdad, killed a U.S. soldier in a roadside bombing, shot two police officers to death and gunned down five people in a series of attacks in the northern city of Kirkuk.

The violence continued today, as a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car at the gates of the U.S. base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing at least four Iraqi employees and injuring others, employees at the base said. In Basra, insurgents fired at a car carrying Iraqi women to work at the airport, killing two, police said.

The raid yesterday against insurgents in Buhriz, a former Saddam Hussein stronghold about 35 miles north of Baghdad, turned into a five-hour battle between militants and U.S. and Iraqi forces.

A military spokesman, Maj. Neal O'Brien, said the clash was ignited when insurgents attacked the Iraqi forces, who chased the attackers into the town's southern neighborhoods. The U.S. military said insurgents later fired mortars indiscriminately, and the U.S. responded with an artillery barrage. No government or U.S. deaths were reported.

A U.S. soldier died late Saturday after being hit by a roadside bomb attack near Beiji, south of Mosul, while escorting a convoy.

In Baghdad's al-Dora suburb, gunmen yesterday killed Brig. Khaled Dawoud, the former head of Nahyia district in southern Iraq during Saddam's rule, and his son in a drive-by shooting.

Gunmen yesterday killed two officers traveling to work at Mahmoudiya police station, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, and another police officer was among five people killed in Kirkuk.

Material from The Washington Post is included in this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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