04 April 2004	Sunday	13 Safar 1425

BAGHDAD, April 3: Gunmen killed a police chief in Baghdad on Saturday, the second to be shot dead in 24 hours and the latest in a growing list of security officers killed by guerillas who target anyone linked to Iraq's occupiers.

Police said the police chief of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, was shot after leaving his home in the capital. His car was riddled with bullets. On Friday night, the police chief in Kufa, further south, was shot dead along with a colleague.

Guerillas fighting the occupation have increasingly targeted members of the US-trained fledgling Iraqi security forces. More Iraqi security officials have been killed in the past year than American soldiers.

The US-led authorities in Iraq have warned attacks are likely to increase ahead of the planned transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30. The US military says it has stepped up operations in reaction to the latest uptick in violence.

Near Baquba, north of Baghdad, a bomb planted in a car by the roadside exploded next to a passing US military patrol. One Iraqi was injured in the blast. Witnesses said several US soldiers were wounded but there was no US confirmation.

In Basra, protesters demanding jobs clashed with Iraqi police, lobbing stones and smashing windows in the centre of the southern port. Police said at least one officer was wounded.

Southern Iraq, controlled by a British-led force has been relatively calm compared to the rest of the country. But a series of protests in recent weeks have spilled over into violence. On Thursday, one protester was killed in clashes with police.

ROCKET HITS HOUSE: In the capital, two men were wounded when a rocket hit a Baghdad neighbourhood on Saturday morning. Parts of one home were completely burned out after the explosion. There was a pool of blood in the hallway, and smoke still rising from an armchair.

Angry residents looking on blamed the attack on the Americans, who are increasingly blamed for everything in Iraq, as frustration grows at the unabated violence more than a year since the occupation of the country.

That anti-Americanism was seen in its most extreme form on Wednesday, when townspeople in Falluja mutilated the bodies of four American contractors shot dead by guerrillas, burning and kicking their corpses for hours.

Anyone seen as related to the occupiers has become a target for guerillas. Police officers, local politicians, foreigners and Iraqis working for international companies have been killed.

A senior military official said on Saturday that intelligence officers were viewing footage of the gruesome acts to identify those reponsible and talk to witnesses.

The US army has promised an overwhelming response, and says it would be better for the town to hand over the guilty without a fight.

"We don't believe that those people represent the vast majority of the people in Falluja, nor that Fallujah is a metaphor for Iraq," the senior official said. "We are going to separate the enemy from the people and we are going to destroy them."

In Baghdad, thousands of supporters of defiant Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr marched through the streets of northeast Baghdad, in a show of strength punctuated by anti-occupation rhetoric.-Reuters