Guerrilla rocket attack in Iraq kills 2, wounds 13

BAGHDAD - Guerrillas fired rockets at the city hall building in Mosul on Saturday, killing two people and wounding 13, in another deadly attack on Iraqis working with US-led occupation forces.

Colonel Shamil Ahmad, head of the city hall police department, said a child and two police were among the wounded. He said at least three attackers launched two Katyusha rockets, which hit the outer blast walls protecting the building.

Guerrilla attacks in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, have killed several people this month including four US missionaries shot dead in their car.

In another incident in the city on Saturday, police fought a shoot-out with a criminal gang that had stolen 62 million dinars ($44,000) in money for government salaries. A policeman and a robber were killed, and two gang members captured, police said.

In Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, a three-year-old boy died on Saturday after being wounded by US troops who opened fire on a car, police and hospital officials said.

"There was a family -- four children, three women and their driver," an Iraqi police major said. "The US forces fired on them and all of them were injured. One child was killed."

A spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division in Tikrit said troops had opened fire on a car that failed to stop at a checkpoint, adding that four people had been wounded.

In Baghdad, a roadside bomb wrecked a passing vehicle, wounding at least five Iraqis. Gunfire erupted after the blast. The explosion targeted a large four-wheel drive vehicle, similar to those used by the US military and foreign security firms.

Shattered glass and a bloodstained cigarette packet lay on the seats of the vehicle after the attack.

Improvised bombs concealed along roads in Iraq have been the deadliest weapon in the arsenal of guerrillas fighting the occupation, killing scores of US soldiers over the past year.

Since the US-led invasion to oust Saddam, 400 US troops have been killed in action in Iraq.

TENSION IN FALLUJA

The latest to die was a US Marine killed on Friday in fierce fighting that raged for much of the day in the flashpoint town of Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad.

At least seven Iraqis were killed in the fighting, including a cameraman working for US network ABC. Doctors at Falluja's hospital said many civilians had been caught in the crossfire.

Marines sealed off several roads leading in to Falluja on Saturday and said they were continuing combat operations there.

In the city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, where ethnic tensions between Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens and Assyrian Christians have at times boiled over into violence, unidentified gunmen killed an Assyrian police lieutenant in an attack on Friday evening.

In a separate incident in the city, US soldiers killed an Iraqi working with US organisation RTI International and wounded two others after mistakenly opening fire on their car, a senior police official said. RTI is an organisation hired by USAID to help establish local governance across Iraq.

On Friday, a United Nations team of electoral experts arrived in Iraq to advise on polls due to be held in early 2005.

Washington's hopes of winning support for its political plans have been dented by opposition from Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Sistani, who wields great influence over Iraq's 60 per cent Shi'ite majority, says a US-backed interim constitution signed by the Iraqi Governing Council earlier this month is flawed and undemocratic.

One of Sistani's followers in Kuwait told worshippers on Friday that the cleric may declare that the Iraqi government that takes power on June 30 is illegitimate -- a move that would cause many Iraqi Shi'ites to reject it.

"If Article 61 of the interim constitution is not changed, Imam al-Sistani may issue a fatwa declaring illegitimate all those to whom power is transferred in June," Kuwaiti newspapers quoted Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Mohri as saying.

Sistani "may also order the Iraqi people to protest or carry out major popular demonstrations and sit-ins in all Iraqi cities," the newspapers quoted him as saying at Friday prayers.

Article 61 has several clauses, but the most controversial one is that even if a majority of Iraqis approve Iraq's permanent constitution in a referendum, it can be vetoed if two-thirds of voters in three provinces reject it.

The clause was demanded by Iraq's Kurds, who want guarantees that their right to autonomy in northern Iraq will not be removed. But Sistani has said it is undemocratic as it allows a minority of Iraqis to dictate to the majority.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq