Rebels attack Baghdad police and troops

9.30am - By ALASTAIR MACDONALD

BAGHDAD - Guerrillas have stormed a Baghdad police station and ambushed an American patrol, killing a soldier and wounding nine in daylight attacks in the capital, defying efforts to crush a Sunni Muslim revolt.

Hours after a US general acknowledged that it was hasty to claim this month's offensive on Falluja had broken the back of the insurgency, rebels killed three policemen in a dawn strike on their station in Baghdad's Sunni Aadhamiya district.

Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed the attack on what it called "the army of idolatrous America and its apostate subordinates". Washington says Zarqawi probably fled Falluja before a US assault that killed 1,200 guerrillas.

The US general who captured Saddam Hussein said it would be harder to track down Zarqawi whose well organised network was moving him between hideouts. But, Gen. Ray Odierno said, the job would be easier now Zarqawi did not have a haven in Falluja.

The Aadhamiya attack followed a raid by the Iraqi National Guard on the nearby Abu Hanifa mosque, a revered shrine for the once dominant Sunni minority, at the end of Friday prayers. It enraged worshippers and triggered clashes that left four dead.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, the secular Shi'ite who heads the US-backed government, blamed Friday's bloodshed on "terrorists" in the mosque. The government says it will quell the Sunni insurgency before an election in January.

Violence threatens the election date. But an enthusiastic response from political parties wanting to register to take part caused the deadline to be pushed back by two days from Saturday. Some 145 applications had been received, overloading the clerks.

Iraq's main creditors at the Paris Club of wealthy donors nations agreed to cancel 80 per cent of Baghdad's debt. The deal could serve as a benchmark for debt relief from Iraq other creditors and help Baghdad rebuild the shattered country.

BAGHDAD BLOODSHED

Government spokesman Thaer al-Naqib said the assault on Falluja, a Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad, had reduced the number of guerrilla attacks in the past two weeks.

But the capital witnessed one of its most unsettled days for a while, as US tanks and helicopters helped beat off the rocket-firing rebels during a three-hour battle in Aadhamiya.

The US soldier was killed and nine wounded when a patrol was caught in an ambush in Baghdad, the US military said.

In the city's western Amriya district, gunmen in cars opened fire on a National Guard unit. A Guard at the scene said seven of the assailants were killed and seven passers-by wounded.

In the centre, a car exploded killing two and, close to the airport, US forces traded fire with gunmen, witnesses said.

The offensive on Falluja has been accompanied by violence throughout the Sunni heartlands north and west of the capital.

In Qaim, close to the Syrian border, gunmen took to the streets on Saturday and clashed with US troops. Two people were killed, witnesses and a hospital official said.

Mosul in the north, Iraq's third city, remains on edge after insurgents routed the new police force a week ago.

The militant Army of Ansar al-Sunna, posted a video on a website which said it showed one of its members shooting dead two Kurds from the government-allied Kurdistan Democratic Party.

A senior US general, acknowledged it was "too early to say ... that the backbone of the insurgency is broken".

Lieutenant General Lance Smith, deputy US commander in the region that includes Iraq, also said his command may ask for 3,000 to 5,000 more troops to improve election security.

The US force numbers close to 140,000 at the moment.

HOSTAGE FREED

In Ramadi, scene of frequent clashes just west of Falluja, US forces sealed off roads into the city early on Saturday and called on people through loudspeakers to hand over "terrorists". Helicopters flew over and Americans blocked access in or out of the Sunni city as troops searched buildings south of the centre.

In Falluja itself, US troops continued hunting for rebels and it was unclear when its 300,000 residents could return.

Sunni Arabs, who account for about 20 per cent of Iraq's 26 million people, have long dominated its political life, most recently under Saddam Hussein. The prospect of power shifting to the long-oppressed 60-per cent Shi'ite minority after the January election has turned unease into violence among some Sunnis.

The Iraqi interim government blames Saddam loyalists and foreign-inspired Islamists for fuelling the insurgency.

A Polish woman freed by kidnappers on Friday and flown to Warsaw said she was treated well, raising hopes for other foreign hostages after a week in which the only other woman held captive, a British aid worker, was thought to have been killed.

Teresa Borcz Khalifa, a long-time resident of Iraq, was snatched on October 27. More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped in the past six months and several have been killed.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told US President George W. Bush that Japan wants to keep helping Iraq, but he stopped short of promising to extend a deployment of Japanese troops whose mandate ends on December 14.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq