Iraqi rebels hit ministry, oil, and security forces

8.25am - By WALEED IBRAHIM

BAGHDAD - Rebels bracing for a US-led assault on their Falluja and Ramadi strongholds showed their muscle on Tuesday with a bloody car bombing in Baghdad, strikes on oil pipelines and several attacks on Iraqi security forces.

A morning car bomb blast at the Education Ministry brought fresh carnage to the busy streets of Baghdad, killing six people and wounding eight, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

"I'm not crying because I'm wounded, but because of my brother. I was with him and I don't know what happened to him," said a weeping Abbas Kadhim, 32, who was hit in the stomach by fragments of concrete as he sat in his car near the ministry.

The blast in Baghdad's mainly Sunni Adhamiya district badly damaged the Education Ministry building and destroyed 31 cars. Flames licked the body of an elderly man killed in the explosion, which scattered body parts across the street.

There was no word on the motive for the bombing, which occurred on the US presidential election day.

With US Marines poised for an onslaught on the rebellious Sunni Muslim cities of Falluja and Ramadi, part of a drive to pacify Iraq before national elections due in January, insurgents seemed bent on showing their power.

Saboteurs mounted the biggest attacks yet on Iraq's oil infrastructure, blowing up four pipelines in the north and halting most exports via Turkey, oil officials said.

Monday night's pipeline attacks also sharply reduced crude supplies to Iraq's biggest refinery at Baiji.

In the northern city of Mosul, a suspected car bomb blew up near an Iraqi National Guard patrol, killing two Guards and wounding four, witnesses and survivors said.

A group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack and said in a web posting that Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's battle against insurgents was "an impossible dream".

Roadside blasts and car bombs killed three other members of the security forces and wounded up to a score in the Sunni towns of Samarra, Abu Ghraib and Haditha.

As often, the violence was concentrated in a swathe of mainly Sunni central Iraq, which includes Falluja and Ramadi.

Dhia Najim, a freelance cameraman filming for Reuters, was among 10 people killed in Ramadi on Monday. His colleagues and family said he was shot by a US sniper. The US military said he died in a firefight between Marines and insurgents.

A Marine assault on Falluja in April failed to dislodge insurgents and touched off a kidnapping spree that has seen scores of foreigners abducted in Iraq. More than 35 have been killed.

Zarqawi's group, in an internet video, showed the beheading of Japanese hostage Shosei Koda as he lay on a US flag. Koda's remains were found in Baghdad on Saturday.

Al Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq warned Tokyo to withdraw its forces from Iraq or "drown in the hell of the mujahideen" along with "crusader forces".

An American, a Filipino and a Nepali were kidnapped by gunmen who stormed their Saudi company's villa in Baghdad on Monday evening. An Interior Ministry spokesman said an Iraqi guard and one of the kidnappers were killed in the shootout.

Two Iraqi guards said on Tuesday they were freed overnight after being abducted along with the foreigners employed by Riyadh-based Saudi Arabian Trading and Contracting Company.

The US military denied an Iraqi police report that insurgents had captured a US soldier in Samarra.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq