Nothing But Politics

[Rick Faurot]

Fighting, insurgent attacks intense in Iraq
U.S. military announces deaths of 4 Marines, 1 soldier
Saturday, September 25, 2004 Posted: 9:48 AM EDT (1348 GMT)


BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least six Iraqis and five U.S. troops died in fighting and attacks by insurgents across Iraq, the U.S. and Iraqi military said Saturday, as hospitals count the dead and U.S. warplanes hit targets in Falluja.

Four Marines, from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, were killed Friday in three separate incidents while "conducting security and stability operations," in al Anbar province, which includes Falluja, the U.S. military announced Saturday.

Officials in Falluja counted at least seven dead and 12 wounded Iraqis brought to hospitals overnight, with reports of civilian casualties, including women and children.

U.S. warplanes on Saturday attacked targets in that city, which the U.S. military considers the center of a terrorist network and where clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents are frequent.

U.S. forces have been fighting suspected members of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network in Falluja, and warplanes targeted "a known terrorist meeting site," the U.S. military said.

On Saturday, Iraqi police said attackers threw two grenades at a van carrying new Iraqi National Guard recruits as it drove through western Baghdad. Five men were killed and four were wounded.

Also, an improvised explosive device killed a Task Force Baghdad soldier in the capital on Saturday.

In Baghdad Friday, police reported an officer with the Iraqi Central Intelligence Service was assassinated after gunmen ambushed the officer's car in western Baghdad.

Before leaving the scene, the gunmen spray-painted a message on their target's car: "This is the fate of the traitors," police said.

With violence hitting so many parts of Iraq, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has pleaded with other countries to help Iraq both militarily and financially.

Allawi seeks support
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in a largely empty room on Friday, Allawi said terrorists were seeking to "destroy the aspirations of our people and to destroy the physical infrastructure of Iraq and to stop the economic life in Iraq and to create a state of tension, panic, instability." (Full story)

The latest fighting comes just days after U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested that parts of Iraq might be excluded from elections set for January because they could be too dangerous for polling. (Full story)

However, on Friday, The Associated Press reported that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage appeared to contradict Rumsfeld, saying elections planned for January in Iraq must be "open to all citizens." (Full story)

Rumsfeld met with Allawi on Friday to talk about security as insurgents wage a campaign of suicide bombing, hostage-taking, beheading and other tactics.

Trying to put an upbeat face on the future of his young government Allawi has repeatedly vowed that the violence endured by Iraq will not deter the upcoming balloting.

He said that if elections were held today, they could be staged effectively in 15 of the country's 18 provinces, and cited South Africa, Sierra Leone and Indonesia as nations where elections were held despite violence.

"Today we are better off, you are better off, the world is better off without Saddam Hussein," Allawi said in his address to Congress on Thursday. (Transcript of Allawi's address)

Wave of abductions
In the third in a series of kidnappings of foreigners in the Iraqi capital this month, gunmen seized six Egyptian telecommunication workers on Friday, Iraqi officials said. (Full story)

Meanwhile, British hostage Kenneth Bigley's fate is still unknown.

Bigley and two Americans were abducted September 16 from their residence in Baghdad. The three men were in Iraq working on reconstruction projects.

The two Americans were beheaded Monday and Tuesday. (Full story)

Bigley's captors said he will face the same fate unless the British government meets their demand to release Muslim women from Iraqi prisons. (Full story)

Desperate but unanswered pleas to release Bigley have taken their toll on his family and put pressure on British Prime Minister Tony Blair. (Full story)