Rockets Hit Green Zone As Violence Rises in Iraq Attacks Across Nation Leave at Least 50 Dead;

The heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad came under attack Sunday, and the police said at least 10 people had been killed by rockets falling outside the government and diplomatic compound.

The attack, one of the fiercest and most sustained onslaughts on the zone in the past year, ushered in a day of violence that claimed the lives of at least 50 people around the country. The attacks underscored the fragility of security in Iraq, despite a decline in violence over the past year.

In the deadliest attack, on an Iraqi Army base in Mosul, a suicide truck bomber killed 15 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 45 people, including civilians, the Interior Ministry said.

Iraqi security forces opened fire on the bomber as he sped toward a military base but were unable to foil the attack because the truck’s windshield had been made bullet-proof, according to an Iraqi Army officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The attacker blasted past an armored vehicle to reach the courtyard of the military headquarters, the officer said.

Mosul, which is 360 kilometers, or 225 miles, northwest of Baghdad, has been described by U.S officials as the last urban stronghold of the Sunni-led insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Much of the rest of the violence, including the attack on the Green Zone, took place in the capital, the center of bloodletting between Iraq’s majority Shiites and minority Sunni Muslims.

Gunmen in three cars opened fire on pedestrians in the religiously mixed southern district of Zaafariniya, killing at least 7 and wounding 16, the police said.

Blood and bullet casings littered the street in front of a clinic, a market and a housing compound.

“I heard that my brother was killed. I just want to know how the terrorists got through all the checkpoints to reach here,” said a Zaafaraniya resident, Abu Muhammad.

In northwestern Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite district of Shula, a suicide car bomber killed six people waiting in a line for gasoline, the police said. The explosion tore through the neighborhood’s main street of houses and shops.

“We were having our lunch inside the restaurant when we heard a big sound of explosion which broke the front glass of shop,” said Abbas Qasim, 38, owner of a store on the street.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, said it had killed 12 insurgents in a raid on a house east of Baquba in the volatile province of Diyala.

“Six of the terrorists killed had shaved their bodies, which is consistent with final preparation for suicide operations,” spokesman Major Winfield Danielson said.

Mosul and Baquba are the capitals of two of four northern provinces where offensives were mounted this year against Sunni Islamist Qaeda fighters, who regrouped there after being driven out of strongholds around Baghdad and western Anbar.

In the attack on the Green Zone, the first barrage of blasts started just before 6 a.m., shaking buildings and sending early risers running for shelter. Sirens went off, and loudspeakers blared, “Duck and cover! Duck and cover!”

A large plume of thick black smoke could be seen rising from one part of the area, which houses many government ministries and diplomatic missions, including the U.S. Embassy.

Other mortars or rockets slammed into the area throughout the day.

Philip Reeker, a spokesman for the embassy, said the mortar attacks had caused “no deaths or major injuries” within the U.S.- protected area. But the Baghdad police said at least 10 people were killed when Katyusha rockets, either randomly aimed or misfired, hit two neighborhoods during the attack. Some reports said as many as 17 people had been killed in the surrounding areas, while Interior Ministry officials said 5 had been killed.

The Green Zone was often hit at the height of sectarian violence a year ago, but attacks have become rarer as security has improved across Iraq.

It was not clear who was responsible for the attacks Sunday, and no one claimed responsibility, but it appeared the rounds were fired from areas of eastern Baghdad where the biggest Shiite militia, the Mahdi army led by the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, operates. The U.S. military has blamed rogue elements of the Mahdi army militia for past missile strikes.

Sadr last month renewed a seven-month-old cease-fire, which the U.S. military has said has contributed to sharp falls in violence across Iraq.

But Mahdi army fighters clashed with Iraqi and U.S. forces in the southern city of Kut and southern Baghdad last week, prompting fears that the cease-fire may be unraveling.

The Iraq war moved into its sixth year last week, and President George W. Bush marked the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein with an upbeat speech in which he said the United States was on track to victory.

Originally published by Reuters, IHT, AP.

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