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U.S. Forces Kill 13 Iraqi Insurgents

Posted on: Sunday, 25 July 2004, 06:00 CDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq - American and Iraqi forces clashed with insurgents in a battle that escalated from gunfire to artillery barrages early Sunday north of Baghdad, killing 13 Iraqi militants, the U.S. military said.

Iraqi forces and U.S. troops suffered no casualties from the fighting in Buhriz, 40 miles north of Baghdad.

Qayser Hameed, a local emergency worker, said two Iraqis - a police officer and a civilian - were killed and six others were hospitalized. Some of the casualties had bullet wounds, others had been hit by shrapnel, he said. It was unclear if the two killed in the hospital were in addition to the 13 dead reported by the military.

Police officer Yasir Ahmed Ismail was killed inside his house when a mortar hit nearby, according to police Lt. Mohammed Adel.

The battle came amid a surge of violence across Iraq that killed a U.S. soldier near the city of Beiji, a former Baghdad official and his son in the capital, two policemen south of Baghdad, and five people in a string of attacks in the northern city of Kirkuk.

Iraq has been plagued by a 15-month-old insurgency marked by car bombings, assassinations and kidnappings that were part of an effort to push out coalition forces and hamper reconstruction efforts.

U.S. and Iraqi National Guard forces entered an area of palm groves south of Buhriz early Sunday and destroyed a suspected staging ground used by insurgents for attacks on coalition and Iraqi troops, said Maj. Neal O'Brien, spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division.

During the raid, insurgents attacked Iraqi National Guard forces, and the Iraqi troops chased the attackers into the southern section of the town, O'Brien told The Associated Press.

Later, the Iraqi fighters began firing mortars indiscriminately, and the U.S. responded with artillery fire, he said.

Associated Press Television News footage recorded several loud explosions, apparently from artillery and mortar fire, booming through Buhriz. Bullets ricocheted off building and shop walls, sending residents running for cover. A U.S. Apache helicopter hovered overhead.

Local Iraqi fighters roamed the streets, carrying rifles and rocket propelled grenade launchers.

Buhriz, a former stronghold of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, has been the scene of previous clashes between coalition forces and Iraqi insurgents.

Also Sunday, the military said one U.S. soldier was killed and another injured when a roadside bomb exploded as they were escorting a fuel convoy. The explosion Saturday afternoon occurred outside the city of Beiji, 90 miles south of the northern city of Mosul, U.S. Army spokesman Master Sgt. Robert Powell said.

In the Baghdad suburb of al-Dora on Sunday, gunmen killed Brig. Khaled Dawoud, the former head of Baghdad's Nahyia district under Saddam Hussein, and his son in a drive-by shooting, police Lt. Mustafa Abdullah al-Dulaimi said. Dawoud's son was not identified.

The car was raked with bullet holes, its windows shattered and its interior covered in blood, according to APTN footage.

Gunmen also killed two policemen Sunday morning as they traveled to work at the Mahmoudiya police station 25 miles south of Baghdad, police Lt. Alla Hussein said. The attackers escaped.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, where residents include Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, a spate of violence killed five people, police said.

An Iraqi policeman was slain by unknown gunmen in a passing car Sunday while waiting for a ride home after his shift guarding a pipeline, said Col. Sarhad Qadir, of the Kirkuk police.

Assailants sprayed gunfire at the house of a Kurdish family in a predominantly Arab area in southern Kirkuk, killing a woman and two of her sons and injuring her daughter, Qadir said.

In another attack, an unknown gunman fatally shot Shirwan Jilal, a fighter with the pro-U.S. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, as he walked home late Saturda, Qadir said.

Gunmen also attacked police forces patrolling in southern Kirkuk on Sunday, injuring an officer, he said.

As part of its efforts to break the insurgency, U.S. soldiers captured 15 members of a suspected terrorist cell early Sunday near Mandali, a town on the Iranian border 60 miles east of Baghdad, according to the military.

Also Sunday, Iraqi police closed off one of Baghdad's main traffic arteries as people gathered in a former country club to choose delegates to the upcoming Iraqi national conference. About 540 people from towns outside Baghdad were to select 20 men and six women to be part of the 1,000 delegates at the meeting.

The national conference was expected to take place this week, but organizers, worried about security, have refused to say when and where. Conference delegates will meet over three days to select 100 people to the National Assembly, which will help prepare for elections to be held by January.

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